


Fated

by orphan_account



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Accomplice!Pepper, Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Serial Killers, Blood and Violence, Its not too in detail but its there, Jesus fuck I'm going to hell for that tag, Like slooooooooow build, M/M, Murder Kink, Murderers, Pepper Potts & Tony Stark Friendship, Pepper Potts Feels, Poor Pepper Potts, Protective Steve Rogers, Protective Tony Stark, Serial Killer Steve Rogers, Serial Killer Tony Stark, Slow Build, Sort Of, Tony Stark Has Issues, Violence, but I wanted some fuckin serial killers and here they are!, but its accurate to later stuff, this is gunna be fucked up ok
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-10
Updated: 2017-11-18
Packaged: 2019-01-15 12:52:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 26,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12321468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Tony is making his morning coffee while the news plays in the background. “Tony, didn’t you tell me you killed a Jenna?” Pepper asks and Tony turns to face the TV, shocked to find the teen’s face on the screen.“What the hell?” he asks, floored that someone he killed twelve years ago was currently on the news.“They found another body in the woods not far from here. That wasn’t you, was it?” she asks.The new victim shows up on screen and Tony immediately shakes his head, “nope, wasn’t me. Never seen the guy before in my life."*Steve was just getting in from his morning run with Sam when he turned on the news. When he looks up to find fucking Johann Schmidt on the TV he curses automatically because shit, he killed that guy eight months ago.“I know right?” Sam says.“Who’s the girl?” Steve asks when some young looking teen pops up on the screen. He's never seen her before in his life so what was she doing next to one of his victims?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, so I was talking with a writing friend who likes to write all this dark gritty stuff and I was like yeah, if it isn't a heavy hitting emotional moment it's usually humor for me my guy. So I thought I'd challenge myself to write something darker than usual. Also I have a somewhat fucked up interest in serial killers and I really wanted to write some. That, and I read a thing once that outlined behaviors sociopaths (I'm pretty sure) had and realized it fit the hero profile pretty damn well, hence writing out fav heroes as killers. Steve was particularly hard to twist into character, Tony's personality lends itself more to serial killing (dear god), but I think I did okay with keeping him in character!
> 
> So, beyond that there will be murder so I should warn for that. And other fucked up themes. It's a serial killer AU so I mean I feel like that's warranted. Anyways, I will warn chap by chap because that's easier, but just know some screwed up shit is coming your way. Hopefully of the enjoyable variety though! Also just because I wrote it doesn't mean I agree with anything in here. Anyways, enjoy the fic I hope!

When Tony first met Pepper Potts it had been an accident. They found each other in a bar in their early twenties, Tony sitting behind the counter with scotch and Pepper was drinking rum and coke. It was the way the light hit her face that attracted him to her- she had a beautiful face and the lighting of the bar somehow made her look better instead of worse. Tony knew that noticing this was unusual, at least the way _he_ noticed these things. Rhodey was a useful springboard in what separated normal from how he saw things. Rhodey would have seen a pretty face; Tony saw a pretty face but focused on the math behind the angles of light hitting her cheekbones. Her beauty was irrelevant to him outside of the mathematical problems the angles of her face provided him. Rhodey found his preoccupation with math bizarre but Tony found numbers less complicated than people.

He didn’t like people and once people got to know him they didn’t like him much either. Oh, he was universally well liked but if someone stuck around close enough long enough his callous attitude and devil may care approach to pretty much everything lost its luster. Rhodey was the exception but Tony attributed that to his extreme ability to feel. He saw things in Tony that didn’t exist because he felt enough for him that he straight up invented traits Tony didn’t have, or he twisted traits that he did have. Like Tony’s supposed loyalty. Tony’s loyalty was to himself, but Rhodey cited the time Tony paid for his mother’s funeral as a show of loyalty and care.

Tony didn’t pay for his mother’s funeral because he cared about Rhodey’s dead mother or even Rhodey; he paid for the funeral because they had a large project due in a month and he needed Rhodey to stop focusing on his mother’s funeral costs and start focusing on the project. Rhodey had dozens of stories like this, all made up or altered by Rhodey’s own capacity to care projected onto Tony’s actions. Normally Tony found empathy useless and baffling, but he had to appreciate Rhodey’s ability to fool himself so hard he had an incapability to see Tony’s lack of empathy towards pretty much everyone. He had his moments but they were few and far in between.

Pepper, for a time anyways, functioned in the same space Tony had after they first met. She saw what she wanted to and twisted what she didn’t until whatever was left resembled Tony very little. He didn’t mind, he only kept his friends- and he used the term loosely- around for his own benefit for the most part anyways. On some level he cared about them, seeing Rhodey hurt gave him a weird level of discomfort he was unfamiliar with, and the same for Pepper, but he knew the way he cared about them sure as hell wasn’t the way they cared about him.

When he had met Pepper though, he found her unusual and in a world of boring people unusual was a good way to catch his attention. “Problem?” she’d asked boldly, staring him down in a way people rarely did. Tony was sure that, at least on some level, people could sense what he was. They could feel that something else was lingering under the charming, attractive surface if they stuck around long enough and he was also sure Pepper was no different. Women always had a better sense for these things than men did- perhaps because they were hunted more often. Tony, when he developed a taste for killing, had no real preference for gender though most of the people he killed were men. They happened to fit into Tony’s usual victim style than women, though there was no shortage of them either.

“Sorry, the way the light is hitting your face looks nice,” he said. Given her confusion he knew right away that wasn’t the right thing to say but it wasn’t the wrong thing either. That wasn’t the way people looked when it was the wrong thing. Pepper was beautiful no doubt and he doubted she got the kind of attention he just gave her- the passive kind that lingered more on observation than an active interest in her for sex. It may not have been the right thing to say, but it wasn’t about to land him in hot water either. Not like when he was at his parents’ funeral and he had said he’d miss his mom- which was true- but he hoped that his father burned in hell. He didn’t even believe in hell but he hoped Howard was there. Rhodey looked especially horrified at that at least until Tony had told him about his father’s abuse, and then suddenly his actions became okay. If someone could understand his bizarre reactions to the things around him he’s learned that people will forgive them.

Tony used Rhodey as a gauge to try and figure out what was and wasn’t acceptable to say. Generally wishing bad things on people- unacceptable. Being polite and basically lying to everyone- acceptable. Tony found it all irritating and grating, part of the reason he had no friends, but Rhodey was different. He had been the first person to suggest that maybe Tony’s obvious misunderstandings around how to behave stemmed from his intelligence. He was by all accounts a genius but he was certain that being a generally fucked up cocktail of his environment thanks to Howard and a slew of other problems made him what he was.

Still, Rhodey’s observations and defense of Tony’s actions when they weren’t right were useful to him. People listened to Rhodey and not because he had a superficial charm like Tony- people looked at Rhodey like a leader and if he was fine with Tony than they should be too. It’s gotten him out of a lot of situations he hadn’t particularly wanted to be in and it also made him far better at manipulating people when Rhodey wasn’t around to explain away his strange actions and clear lack of care for other people.

Pepper had been the second to take his intelligence and use it to spin him a new personality. Except unlike Rhodey she did it purposefully and she knew what he was. Her finding out had been an accident too.

*

When he asked Pepper later what made her take an interest in him she told him that the way his mind worked fascinated her. She had thought, like Rhodey, that his extreme intelligence was the reason he had a hard time relating to the world. Unfortunately for her that was not the case, or at least not like she thought. The truth was that his intelligence meant that he was isolated; it was everything _else_ that made him what he was.

It had been a year since they had met when she found out about his hobby so to speak. Somehow they had fallen into a relationship, something Tony knew wouldn’t be maintained because he had a hard time faking romantic feelings over an extended period of time, when she had decided to do something nice for him.

Tony’s lab was off limits from everyone, not just Pepper, so maybe that was why she never questioned why no one was allowed in it. Even Obadiah, his now late business partner who thought he could try and stop Tony from doing what he wanted while also making a side profit, had stayed out of the lab. Given that Obadiah was for some reason considered him most trusted confidant- that role actually went to Rhodey- Pepper must have just accepted that the lab wasn’t a space she could try and push herself into. She managed to place herself everywhere else with enough efficiency that Tony wondered how good she was at manipulation herself, but the lab was his and his alone.

JARVIS had been down, Tony needed to recode some commands in the AI’s core operating system, which was likely why she had found her way in to begin with. Normally Pepper was in bed by eleven like clockwork unless she had something to do for work the next day that was urgent so Tony didn’t expect her to show up in his lab well after midnight to bring him coffee. She knew he basically lived off the liquid and to her she was being pleasant. It was rather unfortunate that her attempts at being nice had to end with her death.

Tony regretted having to lock her in the lab and sighed, “I really did like you,” he had told her and he grabbed his knife.

*

Pepper took marketing classes for a reason but she hadn’t anticipated them coming in handy when confronting a serial killer of all the situations she anticipated her degree taking her. Tony Stark had been something of an enigma to her and she thought he was interesting. He was highly intelligent and before she found out about his penchant for killing people she thought his intelligence must have been isolating to him. Being as smart as Tony had disadvantages, especially when it came to social rules, because he could easily pick out why they shouldn’t exist the way they did. He was good at pointing out inconsistencies and other things that confused him and she found the way his mind worked to be fascinating. She had no idea that his intelligence was the least interesting thing about him for one, and for two, his lack of understanding when it came to social rules was less about misunderstanding them and more about finding them altogether useless.

She had no idea what she was walking into but she wasn’t exactly stupid either. No serial killer would let someone go when they knew the killer’s secret; she’s seen basically every crime show ever. So she had needed some reason for Tony to keep her around and well… marketing was her specialty and Tony needed some serious marketing. Beyond his initial charm and wit he was brash, brutally honest, abrasive to near everyone, self-centered, and generally someone people tended to dislike if they stuck around to deal with him for more than a few hours at a time. He was a master manipulator as she’d come to find out, but he had a hard time keeping the show up for extended periods of time. So Pepper struck a deal with him- she’d stick around to make him likable and therefore a less likely suspect for murder and he didn’t kill her. It had taken time to convince him but he wasn’t stupid, he knew damn well people were far more willing to spend an extended period of time with him when Pepper was around. Her presence made his seem less… harsh. Rhodey’s presence had a similar reaction- their ability to explain his actions made them seem less strange and more acceptable.

So in the end her relationship with Tony as she knew it ended and they started a whole new adventure together. Pepper had to wonder about her luck in guys given that her relationships never ended well and now apparently she slept with _serial killers_.

*

Steve doubted anyone would ever suspect him of being a serial killer. Hell, most people would probably laugh at the idea that the war hero could ever possibly be a serial killer. He was well liked in his community- always willing to help and generally pleasant to be around. People _loved_ him and it never failed to surprise him just how god damn stupid everyone around him was to miss the obvious. Even Bucky couldn’t see it and Bucky was strangely invested in Steve and his wellbeing. Granted Bucky was dead now but when he was alive he never saw Steve as anything but good. It was almost funny because Steve had all the hallmarks of a sociopath not that most sociopaths killed people- he did his research- but it did raise a question of why Bucky never noticed something was off sociopath or no.

Sure, Steve was charming but he wasn’t very good at friends- he had exactly one; two if he counted Sam and only Sam would count Sam. Then there was his constantly getting into fights, his frequent lies to authority figures in particular, his risk taking behavior, his total lack of concern for himself for certain, but others too if they were stupid enough to try and fight his fight with him or for him. Everything from his childhood until he was an adult indicated that something was wrong- there were only two reasons why no one noticed. One- Bucky. Bucky humanized Steve a little, made his hard edges softer. Where Steve was wound tight and usually angry Bucky was laid back and fun, people sort of assumed opposites attracted there. And Two- people perceived the fights he chose to insert himself in as good.

It astounded him that his hair trigger temper could be so easily written off because he went off on someone who catcalled a teenager. He took no deep offense to the action; all he wanted was an excuse to lose it and people accepted that line of reasoning. It was a pattern he happened to notice as a teen. When people perceived that his temper was directed towards a ‘good’ cause they either ignored it or, to his surprise, _praised_ it. Same with his risk taking behavior. He just wanted the rush but purposefully landing your buddies in the middle of a minefield was generally frowned upon. Tell them he was rescuing Bucky and suddenly it was fine.

Lying worked the same way. Sure, people frowned on it, but if they agreed with your reason to lie it was fine all of the sudden. People were so ridiculously easy to fool that Steve almost made a game out of it now. Do something that normal people wouldn’t consider, but convince them it was fine by acting like it was for a good cause- see if they believe it. They always did, and when they didn’t they let it go because Steve helped old ladies cross the street and watched people’s dogs- someone like that obviously couldn’t be a bad person.

People were total morons but they were pretty fun to fool. The problem with that though was that people in the small community he was from were now invested in his life, which meant that sometimes he got stuck doing things he couldn’t back out of without looking rude. Most of the time he had an excuse to wiggle out of whatever bullshit thing someone wanted him to participate in _now_ but occasionally his mind would fail him and he would either run out of excuses or he couldn’t think of one on the spot. This was how he found himself on a date with a pretty woman he had no real interest in- one of his neighbors worried that he’d get lonely. He didn’t, he liked being alone and his daily jogging with Sam served as more than enough social interaction for the day. But no, Gladys _insisted_ on making sure he wasn’t dying for human contact and somehow managed to talk Sam into her plan of harassing Steve into a date.

Pepper Potts was interesting enough, and pretty of course, but Steve had had other plans for his Friday night and he was annoyed that he got stuck eating some pasta dish he wasn’t paying attention to instead of killing his latest victim. Steve has tried his hand at a few different kinds of victims but he settled on killing killers. Typically the kind that put effort into killing their victims, not the crime of passion or drive by types. There was a certain kind of thrill he got from being able to kill someone like himself, from being _better_ at it than they were. Serial killers weren’t something he ran into often, but people who put time into killing at least one person were surprisingly abundant. He liked taking the time to find one, then hunt them down, figure out their routine, and then eventually kill them. It was what came after that was tedious.

Planning how not to get caught when someone almost certainly noticed that his victim went missing was his least favorite part of killing but it was a necessary evil. Typically his Friday nights were spent kidnapping his victim for the weekend and planning how to properly dispose of the victim while also making sure any and all evidence that pointed to him as the killer was gone but this Friday he got to spend with Pepper.

The woman was accomplished and from what Steve has seen on TV being Tony Stark’s assistant couldn’t be easy. The man was a menace and Steve swore he caused trouble just to see what people would do but he knew he was projecting there. If Steve were more reckless he’d do the same- watching people react to the unexpected was almost amusing. People panicked and freaked out and they always did something incredibly stupid when most of the time the solutions were simple. He mostly chose to lie low though in the interest of not getting caught for murder. Prison didn’t sound particularly fun to him.

“So what about you?” Pepper asks and Steve swears internally. He had been hoping to spend the whole date talking about her- it gave the illusion of being a good listener and he didn’t have to worry about giving away details about his life.

He smiles a little, “oh I don’t really do much. I’m kind of a homebody, mostly I help run a dog shelter with a friend of mine.” Pepper brightens at this just like everyone else did when he said it. He helped dogs, wasn’t that sweet? Even Phil was stupid enough to think Steve’s helping Clint run his stupid dog shelter was nice and the man was highly perceptive. It wasn’t sweet though, he hated the useless mutts but it was an easy way to throw people’s suspicion away from him if murder ever came up. Everyone knew serial killers got off on torturing animals. He didn’t understand the appeal- he preferred an actual challenge and he wasn’t going to get that out of a _dog_. He could say anything he wanted to the stupid animals and they’d wag their tails happily so long as he didn’t say it in a mean voice. There was nothing in it for him that way and other animals were just as much of a waste of time. Humans, now those were tricky. Hunting a target that could figure out it was being hunted and actually had a chance of escape was a whole new challenge altogether and it was one he preferred. But he couldn’t tell Pepper any of this- she’d probably run screaming if she knew he was a serial killer.

“I love dogs,” she says fondly, “but god knows having one with Tony around would end in disaster.” She frowns a little at that and Steve isn’t entirely sure what that means. On the best of days he had trouble reading facial expressions- they all looked too similar even when the emotions were apposing- but he could tell when something was going on though. There was more to that statement but he had no idea what. It didn’t matter to him anyways so he leaves it alone.

“You seem pretty attached to him,” Steve points out with no emotion behind it. If anything he wondered why she was so dedicated to her boss when, by all means, she didn’t need to be. Most people didn’t give a shit about their bosses or outright hated them but most of Pepper’s conversation also centered on Tony Stark and how he was basically involved in everything in her life.

Pepper lets out a small laugh, “I am but it’s nothing you need to worry about. My interests in Tony are strictly on a business basis, he just happens to be incompetent at life and pays well for me to organize his… everything,” she says lightly.

Jealous? Was _that_ what she got from his comment? No, he had no interest in Stark whatsoever so where that came from he was unsure. “I didn’t think you had any um… interest,” he clarifies, “figured if you did you spend enough time with the guy to figure that out. It’s just that most people don’t like their bosses as much as you seem to.” Almost everyone he knew hated their bosses and their jobs, which made Steve wonder why they even _had_ them. But then he supposed not everyone got military pay cheques like he did.

“‘Like’ might be a strong term. I’m more… invested I suppose. Don’t get me wrong, Tony is a great boss, but he’s demanding and sometimes I want sleep without being woken up at four in the morning to listen to him rant about AC/DC,” she says.

Steve lets out a snort that turns into a laugh, “are you serious?” he asks, wondering if Stark was actually enough of an ass to wake his assistant up over something so stupid.

“Unfortunately,” Pepper says. “Sometimes he forgets that not everyone has insomnia.”

Steve can’t help but laugh harder as he pictures an annoyed Pepper picking up the phone because her boss has decided discussing his music taste was a pressing matter. “Sorry, I shouldn’t laugh,” he says, knowing it’s not exactly appropriate to laugh in the situation. “But wow, he must pay well if you put up with that.” Sympathize with being annoyed with the obviously inappropriate behavior and then things will smooth over. He’s done this a million times.

Pepper lets out a small laugh, “don’t worry about it. I’ve got a million stories where that one comes from and they’re all equally amusing. I swear Tony lives in his own head most of the time, must be a side affect of being a genius or something.”

He raises an eyebrow because that was a new theory. “Does it really affect his life that much?” he asks because he couldn’t imagine how that happened but Pepper nods.

“All the time. When you’re as smart as he is conversations tend to be dull, building relationships isn’t easy given that no one can keep up, and social rules make no sense because they contradict each other so much. Poor guy gets lost a lot for someone who regularly finds new scientific discoveries without even trying,” she says.

Hmm. That made sense, Steve supposed, and explained a lot of things about Stark. “Huh. I never really thought of all that,” he says.

“Most don’t. I mean if you ever hear him talk most people think he’s a self-absorbed ass but he mostly talks about himself because he finds talking about the weather so boring he does anything to avoid it,” she says.

Steve laughs, “I can’t blame him for that. Why the weather is a conversation filler I have no idea.” Conversation fillers were tedious and difficult for him to fake. He had no interest in the weather, kids, significant others, pets, jobs, or anything else people used to fill small amounts of time with. Faking interest in those things was exceedingly difficult but thanks to how stupid people were he rarely had to do it these days. People generally took his disinterest as his not being a morning person because his being rude as now inconceivable to his neighbors. He’d almost _pay_ to see their reaction when they all inevitably found out he was a killer.

“I have no idea either, most of us can see what’s going on in the sky and even the blind can determine the weather. Why sit around discussing it? Of course that’s what I spend most of my day doing considering the amount of phone calls I have to make on any given basis for Tony, not to mention work functions. I can see why he finds faking his interest tedious,” she says. So could Steve, but he didn’t get the benefit of being a genius to get out of pointless conversations. He was almost jealous of Stark’s ability to squirm out of that.

He did, however, find an opening into talking about Pepper again and she happily continues talking about her life. At one point she actually compliments his listening skills, which was laughable considering he only paid attention and asked questions to avoid talking about himself but he lets her have her opinions. When they eventually part ways Steve goes back to his regular Friday night activities.

*

“You went on a date?” Tony asks, frowning at Pepper. He’s never understood the point of relationships. They were all so tedious and they took up so much time only to fail a good ninety percent of the time. He’s seen the emotional toll it took on people even if he felt none of it firsthand- the gamble was way more than it was worth. Look at Pepper, the last time she tried dating she almost got killed by Tony. Granted he had no interest in killing her before that, he found her presence useful and unlike the company of most she wasn’t grating, but still.

Pepper looks up from her paperwork looking annoyed- he’s taken the time to actually learn what her facial expressions mean now that she was more of a permanent fixture in his life. “Yes, I went on a date. Am I not allowed to do that?” she asks.

Tony thinks about it for a long moment, considering whether or not this would be a good idea considering her involvement in his uh… less _known_ about life. Everyone knew who he was thanks to his ability to charm people and his ability to discover new things often enough to regularly make news papers all across the world but he doubted anyone thought he was a killer. After he gave up weapons half the world suddenly decided he was a fucking martyr when all he wanted was a challenge and making shit blow up was easy. That had been a bit of a disaster for Obi, whom Tony almost felt bad for but… well, he was the one who was stupid enough to get in Tony’s way. Pepper suggested telling everyone about his being a traitor, it would make people look away from the suspicious circumstances of his death, she said. She’d been right and that had been when he realized that maybe he actually needed her around. He didn’t understand people and she did- her expertise in normal reactions has become invaluable to him to avoid looking like an ass.

So did he want to ruin this all because Pepper wanted a romantic interest for some reason? He’d really rather not kill her date, that would be messy and given Pepper’s taste the lucky guy was likely to be somewhat affluent even if it was only in his own social circle. It would take time and effort to make him go away cleanly but it wasn’t as if he hadn’t done it before, even without Pepper’s help. Ivan Vankov stopped making noise and no one ever seemed to care about where he went.

“Oh my god Tony, are you actually trying to decide whether or not you’re going to allow me to date someone?” Pepper asks. She’s outraged, he knows, because this was a common reaction for her when he did… well next to anything.

He shrugs, “getting close to people can be messy. Its how you got involved in my killing people, remember?” he reminds her in a casual voice that makes Pepper pale a little and shiver. After all these years and she still hadn’t gotten used to being the main help of a serial killer, he had no idea how that was possible but here she was.

“I’m allowed to date, I run your life, not the other way around!” Pepper tells him, her tone of voice rising.

Tony just laughs though, “yeah, so long as I let you live. You’re only here because you’re useful to me; you aren’t useful if you’re off with some other idiot who might find out about my hobbies. Lets not act like you have much power here, Pepper, because you don’t,” he tells her in a blasé, almost amused tone. Her work was invaluable, but not irreplaceable. Rhodey could do all the same things she did; he’d just have to adjust things so Rhodey was home more often. It would be an annoying detail to work out but if he really needed to he already had her replacement even if Rhodey didn’t know his best friend was a serial killer.

That was probably for the best, taking out someone with military training was difficult. Plus he actually liked Rhodey and in more than a superficial ‘you’re useful to me’ way. Rhodey was smart and interesting in a way most weren’t. Tony knew he didn’t really feel much empathy towards people, but he did feel low levels of empathy in certain situations and he was certain that’s what that weird feeling he had for Rhodey was because he almost never felt it. Sometimes he’d feel that way towards Pepper too but for the most part people were an annoyance to him even if they were also assets. How normal people put up with each other he had no idea.

“Oh for- can’t you just let me have one thing, Tony?” Pepper asks. She sags a little in her seat and he frowns.

“You have me,” he says. She sighs and sits back in her seat and Tony gets the impression that that wasn’t the answer she wanted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [My writing Tumblr](https://tenspencerriedplease.tumblr.com/)


	2. Chapter 2

It doesn’t take Tony long to find the name of Pepper’s new romantic interest so he takes the liberty of doing his research. It was good to know who he was dealing with, he reasoned, especially if this guy was going to be taking up Pepper’s time. Her time was valuable to him and he wanted to know who was going to be cutting into it.

Steve Rogers, Tony decides right away, had to have _something_ wrong with him. From his research he learned that Rogers did volunteer work, he worked in a dog shelter with a friend of his, he regularly spent time with community members, and he was a freaking _war hero_. People like that simply didn’t exist and Tony knew what it was like to overcompensate for having something wrong with him. Pepper regularly pushed for him to do ‘good’ things as she put it, things that made him more likable to the public eye. His pet projects were shelters for abused women and various donations to groups that helped abused kids. The public _loved_ it and Tony thought it was almost amusing that the theme of his killing pattern leaked out elsewhere in his life.

If this guy was anything like Tony, and someone this good on the surface had to be _something_ like Tony to try and overcompensate so much for it, then all this work to look good was a distraction. This guy was a freaking master at it too; literally every single piece of information Tony found was some kind of glowing report of how god damn awesome Steve Rogers was. What made Tony curious though was that none of the articles really said anything at all about Rogers.

Sure, they all talked about how great he was but there was nothing to indicate anything about the man aside from other people’s perception of him. He made no comments, there was nothing indicating he had a family beyond a best friend that died years ago, there was no mention of his hobbies, or anything else remotely personal. Steve Rogers, to the eyes of the public, was only a collection of actions that people deemed good. Given Tony’s past with public perceptions he knew people were easy to fool- they wanted to see the best in people regardless of how little good a person had. Something was fishy about this guy and he was going to figure out what it was.

*

Steve didn’t expect his date with Pepper to go anywhere but unfortunately it did. He had no real reason to deny furthering the relationship so he had ended up agreeing to a second date, and a third to Sam’s delight. The preoccupation with romance confused him given how badly most relationships ended. Most of the time they crashed and burned and because people saw Steve as an empathetic, good listener he got stuck dealing with them for some reason. He hated the position of, for all intents and purposes, being a therapist. Why people were so obsessed with relationships that seemed to do more to emotionally wreck them than anything positive Steve would never understand.

That could also be a side effect of his psychology but it wasn’t as if people with a similar psychological makeup lacked relationships. He knew he felt low levels of empathy but he still felt no need to be in a romantic relationship perhaps because of all the lying he’d need to do. Too tedious. Plus pretending to care about people until he did was exhausting, and that was only if he actually ended up developing a connection. Most of the time he never connected to others because he was too baffled by their actions to relate on any meaningful level. Still, that didn’t seem to stop anyone else in his position from enjoying _something_ about romance, plenty of serial killers had families. He wondered if it was just him that felt that way or something else entirely but he didn’t care to figure it out.

“So,” Sam says, looking excited, “how’s Pepper?”

“Fine,” Steve tells him. He hated small talk and preferred when Sam talked about his dead best friend, then at least he could pat Sam’s back and pretend he cared. When they were talking about him he was forced to come up with believable lies and he had to fake feelings things he didn’t really feel, or only felt a little of. He wondered if that was all his psychology or if that was just him too. It wasn’t like he had an abundance of friends that were anything like him to know. Most people he knew were like a low key version of Sam, generally empathetic. Sam was far more empathetic than most, he’s found, and it was exhausting to be around when he spent most of his time with Sam faking feeling something. If he didn’t Sam side eyed him and the man was a bloodhound for faked emotions. He did make Steve much better at faking his feelings though, so he supposes that Sam at least has a use even if it’s a tiring one.

“That’s it? ‘Fine’? Dude; give me more to go on than that, man. You’ve been on three dates now, you’ve got to have more than ‘fine’ as a point of reference,” Sam says.

Three dates that totaled roughly six hours and Steve was somehow supposed to make some kind of connection to Pepper based off this small period of time, or at least that’s what Sam was implying. Six hours was to give him more than ‘fine’ as a point of reference. Even normal people didn’t connect that fast. He wondered if Sam would have thought the same after the third day they went jogging together- their whole work out routine was roughly the same time frame as his dates with Pepper, meaning Sam should have been able to gather something significant about Steve after day three. He couldn’t even do that _now_ and they’ve been friends, and Steve used the term loosely, for two years.

“Three dates is hardly a lot to go on,” Steve points out. “Mostly she talks about work. Tony Stark does some ridiculous stuff.” Pepper seemed to have an endless supply of stories about the man doing random things that ranged from funny, to mildly irritating, to downright absurd. Steve didn’t exactly like hearing them but it was better than the alternative so he dealt with it. The bonus, he guessed, was that nothing he could ever do to or around Pepper would top the ridiculousness of the stuff Stark did.

Sam snorts, “yeah, I’ve watched TV, pretty much everyone knows that. So that’s it? Just some random work stories?” Sam asks. He looks like he’s expecting something else but Steve isn’t exactly sure what else there is to offer him.

“Yeah?” he asks more than says, unsure what he was supposed to do here.

“Seriously, all she talks about is Tony Stark? You don’t… see a problem with that?” he asks, frowning.

It takes a second for it to click but Steve laughs, “no, I don’t. If you heard her talk about him you wouldn’t either. She’s a workaholic, not in love with the guy. She seems more exasperated by him than anything.” He did seem to take up a huge part of her life though, more than any boss Steve had ever been involved with. It was like they did everything together, like they never really spent time apart. Steve had no idea how anyone could stand being around someone so much of the time, especially someone who seemed to be as much of a handful as Tony Stark.

Steve’s words seem to set Sam at ease somewhat but he was still tense. “You sure? Because it sucks getting your heart broken,” he says.

Steve lets out another laugh, “trust me, there’s no danger of that happening.” He was well aware that when it came to matters of the heart he didn’t have one. It suited him just fine too.

“I don’t know man, you’re pretty sensitive. Just be careful, okay?” Sam asks. Steve resists the urge to laugh again because sensitive was the last thing he was. It was amazing how much he could make people see what they wanted to, how easy it was to paint a picture that didn’t exist in real life. The funny thing was that Sam wasn’t stupid, nor was he easily manipulated. Steve has watched people try and fail to do get Sam to do what they wanted and yet Steve had no problems getting Sam to see only what Steve wanted him to. It was borderline impressive.

Steve nods more to appease Sam than anything really.

*

Tony stares at the ceiling toying with his knife. It’s clean for Pepper’s sake, the first time she ever saw his weapon it had been covered in blood and she’d started crying. It was an uncomfortable reaction Tony didn’t like so he avoided her finding the weapon covered in his latest victim again. “This is getting boring,” he tells her and Pepper lifts her head, examining him.

“What’s getting boring?” she asks. They both knew what he meant and he knew she knew that was true. Pepper wasn’t a stupid woman, she bargained with a serial killer for her life and it worked. No one stupid could pull that off.

“Killing,” he says casually. Out of the corner of his eye he watches Pepper shiver though whether it’s out of fear, disgust, or something else he’s unsure. “They say- cops I mean- that the first kill is the best, that it gets you the best high kind of like drugs but that’s bullshit. The first time you don’t even know what you’re doing, you’re just trying not to screw it up somehow or get caught. You’re nervous. Who the hell would want a repeat of that shit show? The tenth was the best for me. She was young, late teens. Her name was Jenna-”

“I don’t want to know about your victims, Tony,” Pepper says, interrupting him.

He looks over at her, wondering if that was true. People were always looking for a why in these situations, acting like there had to be a reason at all. Even Tony looked for a why for awhile. His conclusion was that he just liked killing people. Sure, he had a type that he preferred but truth be told he’d kill anyone if the urge was strong enough and there was no real reason other than liking to do so.

“If you think I’m a monster I had nothing on Jenna. She got what she deserved, maybe even a little better,” he tells her. She had been his first true victim, the one where he figured out what formula to use to get the most enjoyment out of the act. The first nine were good enough but he’d been a lanky teenager so killing and hiding bodies was difficult, especially around midterms. Keeping Rhodey from noticing was also a pain in the ass.

Then he had been feeling the itch for some time when he found Jenna by chance. He was almost twenty-one and walking down the street when he heard a kid squeal, the kind that indicated they were hurt, not playing around. He didn’t know why he decided to investigate but the why didn’t matter so much as what happened after. Jenna never saw it coming, neither did he really, and Jenna’s younger sister probably thanked him for it too. He held her for a week while he did his research and he’d been shocked to find that there was worse in the world than him, especially from a seventeen year old girl that looked like she taught Sunday school.

Pepper sighs, “I’m sure you believe that but I’d rather stay out of it. Keep your boredom and your… murders to yourself, please.”

Tony considers Jenna a little longer, about how she was the only one of his victims anyone ever found. He wasn’t an idiot, prosecuting for murder was damn near impossible without a body so he made sure there were none, but Jenna had been an exception. She was a work of art really, certainly the best he ever came up with on short notice. The cops had been baffled to find her so mutilated, her parents had cried, and then the neighborhood kids started telling stories. By the time they were all done everyone thought Jenna got what was coming to her and Tony, who had only been passing through the town, was long gone. He contemplates whether or not getting recognition for his work was what had made it better but dismisses it. Fifteen was easily his second best and there was no recognition to be had there so what made them better?

“Maybe I should switch things up,” he says aloud.

“Tony, keep your murders to _yourself_!” Pepper tells him in a firm tone.

He sits up, “got anyone you want me to kill? That’ll be fun,” he says, thinking through all the ways he could deny the obvious connections. A challenge, that’s what that was. He’s always liked a challenge.

Pepper looks horrified or at least he’s pretty sure that’s what that was. “Jesus Tony, _no_ , I don’t have anyone I want you to murder. Just… go talk to JARVIS about it,” she says.

“JARVIS isn’t human, how’s he supposed to help?” Tony asks.

“Well sometimes I don’t think you are either, maybe you have that in common,” Pepper tells him.

He thinks he should be offended but he just laughs, “no, you know I’m human. That’s what scares you so much. Its what scares all of them.”

Maybe he should keep his victims longer…

*

Natasha smiles as James hands her coffee. “Did you hear on the news?” he asks as he sits down.

She snorts, “buddy I was _there_ ,” she tells him. “Phil thinks its serial, he says it’s too organized to be a first kill.”

James nods along, “and what do you think?” he asks. He trusted her opinion more though she wasn’t sure why. She didn’t really care to question it either.

“I think he’s right. We’re combing the area to see if we find more bodies but this was only found by chance by a hiker. Honestly it sounds like the beginning of a _Criminal Minds_ episode,” she says, rolling her eyes. Shows like that didn’t know a damn thing about finding a murderer or pretty much anything else to do with police work.

“How long had the body been there?” James asks.

“Hard to say without Bruce’s input but I’d say at least a few months. There wasn’t much left,” she says. Even so she could see that there was no question that the victim had been killed- it’d probably been pretty brutal from what she could see. Bruce would be able to see more, be able to tell them more.

James swears, “well I guess this is going to go nowhere fast. What else do we have?” he asks, flopping back in his seat a little. It was amazing how much a few years had done for him. She’d never fail to be surprised with just how far James had come since she first found him, even when he wasn’t exactly a shining beacon of optimism like right now.

Still, when she found him he knew nothing at all about himself and, according to him, been wandering around homeless for some time. His arm, which he seemed to have lost at some point, had had a nasty infection despite some basic medical treatment and he had no memory of who he was or where he came from. He did have a Brooklyn accent though, not that that helped him much when Natasha found him in Romania.

She had taken him in though and cleaned him up, taking on a project that was a person for the first time ever in her life. She didn’t do well with people and later they found that James didn’t do well with them either. They got along well, even after it became obvious that his identity was going to remain a mystery. She tried but there was only so much she could do, or so much her contacts were willing to deliver more accurately. Yelena had dug up a name- James- and that was all she had been willing to give Natasha.

James had taken it gracefully and accepted his fate and from there they moved forward. James got healthier, more ambitious, he grew a personality, and then they both decided to be cops. It wasn’t what either of them really wanted out of life but it was a decent enough stop along the way and they both had the skillset for it. Whatever James did before he had some impressive muscle memory that indicated a background that was military of some sort she was sure.

“This is all we’ve got, partner, so pull up on your big boy panties and lets try and scrape something together for this case,” she tells him.

This gets a groan out of James but he sighs, “fine, give me everything you’ve got so far.” They both go through the information they had so far, which wasn’t much, to come up with a few theories.

So far Natasha figured the victim had to have been kept for awhile though Bruce would be able to tell them that for sure if he noticed some wounds were fresher than others. She also had to commend the killer on picking a stretch of woods that wasn’t travelled often, so the killer had to be fit and muscled. They killer would also have to know the area well to know that it wasn’t travelled often- a local. This murder was obviously planned, so there had to be a premeditated reason of some kind for the killer to have chosen this person in particular.

Lastly, this probably wasn’t the first kill and she doubted it was the last. This was all too methodical, too organized, and there was too much damage to the body to come to any other conclusion than this being the first found body in what she anticipated in a long string of murders. Whether they’d find anything else, however, was debatable. She hoped they got some kind of lead but she was also aware that this was a crime that took place a long time ago and the killer was smart enough to not leave evidence. The only reason this body was even found was due to a freak accident.

“I still don’t think we’re going to get anywhere,” James tells her after a half an hour of drawing up their own theories.

Natasha sighs, “me either, but we should try. This person had a family, a life.”

“Yeah, and he was a piece of shit,” Clint says, interrupting her and James and making James jump. Natasha gives him a dirty look but he ignores it in favor of the file he was holding. “Turns out our victim was a goddamn serial killer himself. Johann Schmidt was a real fucking piece of work and was active down in Texas by the boarder. Had a thing for killing Mexican women in particular but as long as they were brown he wasn’t too picky on gender, socioeconomic status, none of that. Guy was a straight up racist. Looks like he got a taste of his own medicine- the killer hacked him up like he did his victims,” Clint says, handing Natasha a file.

James scoots over and looks at what Clint had gathered. By the time they make it through she was inclined to agree with Clint that this scumbag got what was coming to him. The only reason he even got off when he was arrested was some bullshit technicality his lawyer used to spring him a release. Schmidt went missing not long after and now he turned up in a shallow grave with the same wounds he inflicted on his victims simply because of their skin color. Poetic justice was what this was but that didn’t change the fact that this couldn’t have been their second killer’s first kill, it just meant that their killer apparently didn’t like racists, which was a fucking joke when you were a serial killer.

“So,” James says, “what do we do?”

Clint and James both look at her because she had, somehow, become the leader of the department when Phil wasn’t around. She sighs, “well, I think we’ve got a clear motive so we work from there, see if anything else has come up with the same kind of MO.” They both nod and go back to their own spaces so they could begin their research and Natasha turns back to her desk so she could do her own share.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [My writing Tumblr](https://tenspencerriedplease.tumblr.com/)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got more of this done than I thought I was going to so I figured what the hell, might as well put another chapter up.
> 
> Warnings for some mild descriptions of death and torture.

Tony is making his morning coffee when the news starts to play in the background but he doesn’t pay much attention to it. The TV was mostly on for Pepper’s benefit, she liked watching the morning news and she was usually at his house before work so it was habit for him to turn it on for her. It isn’t until Pepper speaks up that he even turns to face the background noise. “Tony, didn’t you tell me you killed a Jenna?” she asks and Tony turns to face the TV, shocked to find the teen’s face on the screen.

“What the hell?” he asks, floored that someone he killed twelve years ago was currently on the news.

“They found another body in the woods not far from here, it was on some mostly untouched part of the woods. That wasn’t you, was it?” she asks, looking surprisingly panicked for someone who usually didn’t express any negative feelings towards his inevitably getting caught.

The new victim shows up on screen and Tony immediately shakes his head, “nope, wasn’t me. Never seen the guy before in my life. Where’d you put the sugar?” he asks.

Pepper makes a loose gesture to the cupboard above the coffee maker and Tony goes over to it, ignoring the news again. There was no evidence to connect him to his victim; he knew that for sure, so there was no reason to worry. Why the hell she was connected to this new rando he had no idea.

“Tony,” Pepper calls and he turns again, this time walking over because his coffee was made. “What they’re saying about that girl, is it true?” she asks as he sits down. Tony listens to what the news anchor is saying about Jenna and nods.

“Why do you think I killed her?” he asks, leaning back in his seat with his coffee.

Pepper’s face pales, “she really used to babysit kids just to torture them?” she asks.

Tony nods, “found her with her sister, it was a spur of the moment kind of thing. Poor kid looked terrified.”

“That’s horrible,” Pepper whispers. Yeah, Tony knew that, that was why he killed her. “You wouldn’t… you wouldn’t do something like that, would you?” she asks and Tony feels his face twist.

“ _Fuck_ no, what kind of person do you think I am? That’s fucking disgusting, I don’t hurt kids! Well, Jenna was seventeen but she was old enough to know that her actions were deplorable at best,” he says. “God, I might be a serial killer but even I have limits.” Kids have always been his limit- people who hurt kids deserved to die full stop. So he killed them. Before his targets were mostly random choices he’d make on his way home from somewhere, or if he was bored. Then Jenna happened and he found a formula that worked way better for him so he stuck with it.

He wondered if the cops would even find the first nine considering his methodologies varied so much across victims. He dabbled in a little of everything but found drowning took way too long, strangulation was more fun during sex than murder, suffocation was fucking boring, accidentally dropping a victim off a building had been ultimately unsatisfying though he let people believe that was suicide.

There were a few other methods but they were either messy or something was off about them. God, people screamed _so_ loud when they were on fire. The fact that he was high explained why he chose such a stupid method for murder, and a noisy one too. He avoided drugs after that. Still, his crimes before Jenna had no connection, and the crimes after her were covered up well enough that no one should find anything. The fact that he’s technically been linked to some guy in a forest was astounding to him considering he had no idea who it was.

“Thank god,” Pepper says, drawing his attention back to her. “I thought… It’s just… you usually have such a high threshold for disgust. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you disgusted outside of having a conversation about Justin Hammer.”

Tony frowns because _that’s_ what she got from that? “Well, they’re _kids_. They haven’t done anything yet, and they trust you, people who hurt them are fucking scum bags.” And the _excuses_ some of the people he killed came up with, that was almost worse than the actual abuse.

“You don’t even like kids,” Pepper says, frowning.

He rolls his eyes, “no, I don’t _want_ kids and be honest, do you really think I should reproduce? But not wanting them doesn’t mean I don’t like them, I do.” If he weren’t so fucked up than maybe, in another world, he would have had children. Maybe one where Howard didn’t exist, and he wasn’t a cold blooded killer, and he didn’t have a slew of other problems to deal with but that universe didn’t exist for him, instead he got this one.

“Oh,” Pepper says softly. “Okay. This other guy though, the one you didn’t kill, he was killed using the same method you used on yours,” she says.

“What do you mean?” he asks. Usually he favored his knife, something he learned with Jenna, but that hadn’t been the only thing he did to her so what the hell did some other killer have in common with him? And was there really another killer around here or was this a body dump? Statistically speaking it was unlikely to find another killer so close to him.

“The guy- Schmidt- he was a serial killer too I guess, in Texas. He was killed using the same method he used on his victims, which was pretty gruesome honestly. But you did the same thing to… that girl, used the same torture methods on her that she did to those kids. That’s why the cops think they’re connected. Are you sure you didn’t kill that guy?” she asks.

Yeah, he was sure. Trophies are what TV shows labeled them and he guessed they weren’t wrong exactly, but he had something from all his victims, some reminder that he came in contact with them. Not that anyone could find the files he had saved deep in JARVIS’ code- even JARVIS didn’t know the files were there. The benefit to his hiding spot was that on top of being a tech genius that was unlikely to find anyone to match him for intelligence now that Vankov was out of his way was that JARVIS himself would fight back if someone went digging in that code section. It was the heart of who and what JARVIS was and he was programmed to have what passed for self-preservation instincts. It was a nice touch if he did say so himself. Point was there was no trophy from this Schmidt guy on the news, he’d remember it.

“I don’t usually kill killers, child killers being the exception. I’ve come across a few. So yeah, I’m sure I didn’t kill that guy and these cops have their motivations all messed up. Looks like they think me and some other person are vigilante killers who kill victims in the same way they got to their victims but that’s not true at least for me. Jenna was a one-time thing; I hardly ever do that now. Usually I stick with my knife.” He liked the personal nature of sliding a knife into someone’s body, the way they automatically curved around it like they were trying to get the body part that was being stabbed away from the knife as fast as possible. And there was, of course, the blood. It was messy but in a satisfying kind of way that always left Tony wanting for more.

“You don’t think they’ll find you, do you?” Pepper asks. Her eyes are a little wide in what Tony is pretty sure is worry.

“Do you really care? I know you don’t exactly approve of my hobbies,” he says. He couldn’t imagine why she’d care if he got caught, not hat he would.

Pepper considers this for a long, long time before she finally nods. “God help me but yes, I would care if you got caught. I might not approve of what you do but I do love you, Tony.”

Tony doesn’t say anything because he didn’t believe god was going to help Pepper. He didn’t believe in god at all.

*

Steve was just getting in from his morning run with Sam when he turned on the news. It was a weird habit he had and he had long since grown used to Sam doing whatever he wanted in Steve’s house. When he looks up to find fucking Johann Schmidt on the TV he curses automatically and without thinking because _shit_ , he killed that guy eight months ago.

“I know right?” Sam says, mistaking Steve’s reaction for one of shock due to the murder happening, not because he was shocked his victim had been found. “Apparently he was a racist who killed anyone who was brown though so I can’t say I’m sorry to see him go,” he adds.

Yeah, Steve supposed Sam had a personal investment in being glad that Schmidt wasn’t around to potentially kill him for being black anymore. Schmidt was easily one of the more deplorable people Steve has killed though he wasn’t the worst by far. He had been pissed off with Schmidt’s Aryan race bullshit though so he thought he’d give him a taste of his own medicine. The funny thing was that he didn’t usually kill that way, using the killer’s own method, usually he preferred a knife. There was something distinctly attractive to him about the feeling of warm blood all over his hands. Schmidt had been a real treat considering how bloody his method was and Steve took his time too. He savored Schmidt in a way he didn’t usually allow for himself and it had been _excellent_. After him he had had the longest times between killing people that he’s had in years. Like always though the itch had come back and he had had to do something about it so he found a new victim.

“Who’s the girl?” Steve asks when some young looking teen pops up on the screen. She looked like she taught Sunday school to kids of something.

Sam shakes his head, “oh that’s where it gets worst, that twisted fuck used to babysit kids pretty much just to torture them. Poor things were too scared of her to say anything until after she turned up with all the same wounds she gave them,” he says.

Steve’s eyebrows shoot up in genuine surprise and a little disgust too, “what the _fuck_?” he asks more in reference to the girl than anything. What kind of twisted piece of shit hurt _kids_? Even he had his limits and kids were not somewhere he’d ever go. That’s just too fucking far.

“The world is going to shit, Brock Rumlow is president and there are teen girls out there tormenting small children. I think that’s enough news for me today, it isn’t even noon yet and I want to go back to bed,” Sam says, shaking his head.

“Were they connected? Those two people?” he asks because he’s never seen that girl before in his life. If he had he would have made a few changes to his usual MO because she was an exception if he ever saw one.

“Yeah, they were obviously both killed by someone who wanted some kind of justice. Their own methods were used against them, that’s the connection,” Sam tells him, frowning.

No, it wasn’t. Steve knew that thanks to having killed half the victims and never having seen the other half before. So who he hell was the other killer?

*

Tony didn’t like this Steve Rogers guy; it took him three seconds to determine that. Telling Pepper to bring him along to one of those stupid gala parties was the perfect opportunity to meet him and get a feel for who he was. So far Tony has decided he didn’t like what he found. Too perfect also applied to his face and overall demeanor and Tony didn’t want him anywhere near Pepper. He could feel something was off with him, he _knew_ it. Pepper, however, was absolutely not having it from him.

“You will behave or I will purposefully screw up your next month and you will _not_ like it,” she hisses at him, obviously angry.

“There’s something wrong with him, find someone else!” he tells her.

She rolls her eyes, “oh my _god_ Tony, there is nothing wrong with him! You’re just mad that you aren’t the center of attention anymore. Stop acting like a child and get over it!” she tells him.

Oh he was _not_ mad that he wasn’t the center of attention, everyone _else_ at this function still liked him just fine and they all paid attention to him too, this was a problem with Steve fucking Rogers, Good Boy Extraordinaire. He was overcompensating for something Tony could _feel_ it. “If I wanted to be the center of attention, Pepper, I would be. You know that so top acting like that’s my reason. You know it isn’t.” She was by no means a stupid woman so it was near insulting to see her acting this way.

Pepper sighs and throws a hand up, “tell yourself what you want, Tony, but you’re seeing things that aren’t there,” she tells him.

“Or I’m seeing something you don’t. Lets not act like _you’re_ the one with more experience when it comes to depravity.” She had more experience than most, sure, but he outstripped her in this area easily.

“Oh for gods sakes, Tony, the man is a war hero. Maybe you’re just jealous that he’s everything you aren’t,” she says in an exasperated tone.

Tony laughs, “I hate to be the one to tell you this, but when you’re in a war you kill people. You only jumped from one killer to another,” he says. He isn’t anticipating the slap but he smiles nonetheless, touching his cheek thoughtfully. It hurt more than he would have expected from an open hand and from someone Pepper’s size. She was small, at least in weight though her height didn’t really make up for much, and apparently she was deceptively weak. He had to admire the guts it took to slap someone whom she knew killed people for pleasure, someone who almost had her on the end of his knife once. He wasn’t sure if it was for Steve or if it was because, in his own way, he insulted her too with his comment. He was sure she was defending her own honor.

“Shut up, Tony,” Pepper hisses at him in a dark, menacing tone. “You’re just pissed off that he’s everything you aren’t and you’re pissed off that I have something besides you to pay attention to.”

He laughs again at the absolute absurdity of the statement. “Pepper, I don’t care how much attention you pay to me. If I did you wouldn’t be my assistant, that takes up more time than most people can even find in a day. If I really cared about how much you paid attention to me you’d be my slave. And if you think for one second that I’m _jealous_ of Rogers’ ridiculous reputation you’ve got another thing coming. I don’t give a shit about how good he is and why? Because I don’t care how bad you think I am, or anyone else for that matter. I don’t like a lot of things about myself, Pepper, but the fact that I’m a killer isn’t one of those things. Its _you_ who has a problem with that,” he says in a low, even tone. They look at each other for a long moment; Tony holding eye contact in a way he can see makes Pepper uncomfortable. He watches as she pales a little and eventually she looks away.

“I don’t understand you,” she whispers softly.

So he knew. It was rather stupid of her to make a connection to him, then, if she obviously had no interest in understanding him. He was never going to change and neither was she so their partnership, if you could call it that, was as unrealistic as it was unlikely. For the first time since Pepper talked her way out of being killed by him he wonders if he might just have to kill her anyways. She might be attached but she was being pushed to her limits, and the end of her limit put him in a dangerous position. He hoped it didn’t come down to that but he would do what he needed to even if he knew he didn’t want to.

Pepper should consider herself lucky; usually he didn’t care about people enough to not want them dead.

*

Steve has seen Tony Stark on TV but it was nothing like when he saw the man in person. Charming might be a nice way to put his social skill at least so long as you avoided a real conversation with him. His smile was bright and his laugh carried, he was all flash and glitz with no real substance underneath that pretty, pretty suit of his. All those smiles and laughs were to fool his audience and they were easily taken with his bright eyes and grand way of speaking. Tony expertly manipulated his audience into looking away from the things he wanted to hide. Like the fact that he really, _really_ didn’t like Steve.

Vapid might have been an accurate description of the show Tony put on but the suit was like armor that hid what was underneath, a shell of sorts that served as part of his distraction method. What was underneath that was something Steve was oddly attracted to. Occasionally Tony’s eyes flickered over to him and he could see something there, something calculating and shrewd, but as soon as he noticed it Tony looked away and went back to his adoring fans. Pepper was the only one who noticed Tony’s slight digs at Steve, said in a pleasant tone that, to anyone who was listening, sounded more like he was making small talk than subtle insults.

He had to wonder what it was that seemed to irritate Tony so much. It couldn’t be his involvement with Pepper; it wasn’t as if Tony was interested if the tabloids on any given day were right at least a quarter of the time and beyond that it wasn’t like Pepper lacked her own life even if her work was directly tied to his. He wondered if maybe it was something deeper than that, something he thought Steve’s involvement with Pepper might give away but he had no real evidence for that aside from a feeling. It made him curious enough to corner Tony to ask though and the man looked surprised, like he wasn’t used to being cornered. Military training was useful at times.

“What’s your problem?” Steve asks, skipping all the pretenses because he knew Tony didn’t care for social rules anyways. He’s watched Tony break the rules over and over again tonight so he figured that on some level Tony might appreciate his forwardness.

Watching Tony’s carefully constructed walls fall was… not what Steve expected. He thought Tony was outlandish and extravagant, but he had no idea how much of himself he truly held back in a conversation. Tony’s demeanor quickly changes from unassuming business man to something… darker. Steve could _feel_ the power rolling off him in waves as Tony draws himself straighter and considers Steve in a lazy, almost dismissive way. To a normal person, Steve was sure, this would have been rather intimidating. Steve outweighed Tony easily, and he was quite a bit taller than him too but this had no real affect on the way Tony looked him over. If he didn’t know any better Tony was looking at him quite like a cat might examine a mouse.

“Call me old fashioned,” he says, “but I don’t trust anyone without a bad side.”

Steve smiles slow and deliberate and he lets his own walls fall too, “maybe you just haven’t seen it,” he says. He looks over Tony in the same lazy, borderline predatory way Tony had looked at him before but all Tony does is smile.

“Well, don’t a guy hanging,” he says, lips tipping up a little in something that resembled a smile but wasn’t one before he walks away, his shoulder hitting Steve as he made his way past.

He had no idea what just happened but he wanted more of it.


	4. Chapter 4

Tony starts doing far more research into Steve Rogers because he wasn’t wrong about him. Pepper… Pepper must be desperate for something that wasn’t as dark as him in her life because she saw none of it, or maybe she simply chose to ignore it, but Steve had shown him that something else lingered beneath the surface of his pretty, good boy act. He knew that feeling, the one he got from Steve when he told Tony that maybe he hadn’t seen his bad side. Most people hadn’t seen his bad side either, and most never would. But that few seconds when Steve let down his walls and showed the cold, calculating demeanor that was underneath was enough to get Tony interested so he delves back into his research on the man.

The first thing he finds that’s interesting is a long history of getting into fights. Everyone who knew Steve from his youth had a bunch of stories to tell about his constantly picking a fight with someone, usually someone bigger and stronger. Authority figures- people that he wanted to prove something to. Tony files that away but refrains from making any meaningful connections with it yet. Plenty of kids got into fights when they were young and, like Steve, grew out of it in adulthood. The second thing Tony finds that interesting is Steve’s penchant for disrespect when it came to authority figures.

His military record wasn’t nearly as clean as the average war hero’s was- Tony had Rhodey’s file for a reference point. Almost every superior Steve worked with cited that he had no respect for authority and consistently refused to follow orders. The kicker to the whole thing? He always had a good enough reason that his superiors overlooked the obvious disregard for orders. The fact that he always got his job done and efficiently helped his case, but it was clear he would have been labeled difficult at best if people didn’t find his reasoning logical enough to forgive him. The fact that he played the Church Choir Boy act well helped.

Tony sends a text to Rhodey outlining Steve’s general behavior with a few questions attached because he was the real expert on how the military worked and he moves on. Steve, he finds, is also quite a risk taker. Fearless was often a word used to describe him from early childhood right until last week when some neighbor thanked him on social media for jumping in front of a moving vehicle to save her cat. His entire military career had shown this fearlessness too, and often to a point where it seemed his goals were more important to everything else around him. His goals were noble though so people didn’t seem intent on questioning them and even when they did it went nowhere.

His phone buzzes and he picks it up, examining the answering text from Rhodey that told him what he thought it would. That Steve’s behavior wasn’t what the military would want, that he was out of line, and that he was surprised that Steve was seen in a good light at all. Tony too, but he met the guy so he knew he could put on a good show. Good enough that Pepper ignored whatever instinct she had that told her something was up. She had to have _some_ indication, she simply wasn’t that stupid. Plus she’s spent more than enough time around Tony to know what to look for.

All the information, while interesting and somewhat informative, wasn’t enough for him to make any strict conclusions yet. So he knew Steve, at least in his youth, had a temper even if he never grew out of acing on impulse, he knew Steve was difficult and didn’t like deferring to authority figures, and he knew that the perceptions of Steve didn’t at all match the reality but those things were true for most people. It was when he found the suspicious string of bodies that were close to Steve that he decided these things were all more than a coincidence.

The first one showed up when Steve was seventeen. Some neighborhood bully, one well known for picking on Steve, but nothing came of it even when they found a mutilated body. Steve had been occupied during the time of death anyways so the police skipped him as a murder suspect altogether. The next one popped up in his early twenties, also with a connection to Steve and general assholery but nothing came of that either. That kill was cleaner but no less brutal.

The last body to pop up was near the end of Steve’s military career and he was credited with killing Steve’s best friend Bucky, but Steve had a solid alibi for the time of the murder. His ability to go undetected considering his recklessness in his youth was impressive, but then two of the murders were covered by solid alibies. Steve, Tony figured, was smart enough to get around the usual line of suspicion but three murders with close connections to Steve were too much to be a simple coincidence. That coupled with the rest of his knowledge on Steve painted a pretty picture he was keen to know more about.

*

Tony hadn’t disappeared from his mind for four days before Steve finally gave in and looked the man up. He was used to research on people but the sheer volume of stuff he found about Tony was absurd. Everything from his favorite AC/DC song to his favorite color to the last time he took someone home was all available to read. It was far too much to get anything useful from it so he started narrowing his searches, trying to find some kind of evidence that Tony was what he thought he was. Steve wasn’t sure what the purpose of the research was exactly given that he had little interest in killing Tony.

Usually that’s what his research was for, determining whether or not his latest victim should die. That required ensuring that the victims he killed were actually murderers, which wasn’t what he was trying to find here. Normally by the time he was done with this part of his planning he’d either kill someone or he wouldn’t. Except here Steve was only looking for some kind of evidence that Tony Stark wasn’t what he said he was, and after that there was nowhere to go. Steve wasn’t even sure what his end result of this _was_ yet.

It takes him another two days to find workable search terms but when he does he finds a few interesting things. It’s Tony’s business partner Steve chooses to focus on though because the man went missing under suspicious circumstances and his body was never found. People might have paid more attention to this if it wasn’t for Tony’s regretful speech about Obadiah Stane’s selling weapons to terrorists, something he discovered when he shut down the weapons section of his company. The way it was set up was beautifully planned and executed perfectly. Tony played his part well, his charm on full volume but there was no way he planned this himself. Steve already knew that Tony only took the time to read people when there was something in it for him and that beyond his initial ability to charm people he didn’t do well with anything social.

Someone else did the planning for him here, and they set it up very well. No one would consider the possibility that this was a distraction from the more than suspicious disappearance of Obadiah Stane and the lack of his body resurfacing. He doubted people thought Tony’s act was fake either- it looked genuine. It looked coached. The only thing that resembled Tony’s usual demeanor in the whole press address was when he looked at the cue cards he was holding and then threw them out to say whatever it was they said but in his own words.

The problem with all the things Steve found was that they were circumstantial at best. Nothing was concrete and most of what he got relied on his own admittedly bias analysis. He wanted to see something in what he found because he saw something in Tony at that party, something that reminded him of the darker parts of himself. The parts of himself that no one got to see all that often. The potential of having run into someone who would understand that was tempting to follow but Steve wasn’t an idiot. Apparently someone he buried eight months ago just turned up on a piece of land people rarely used- he couldn’t afford chasing dreams just because they sounded nice. For all he knew there was nothing really out of the ordinary about Tony Stark at all, maybe he was just a pompous ass who was good at playing the intimidation card. That fit just as well as Steve’s own conclusions even if it was a result he’d rather wasn’t true. Either way he knew he had bigger things to consider.

*

“There’s been nothing on Schmidt?” James asks, frowning.

Natasha shakes her head, “absolutely nothing. So far the last person who saw him alive was a convenience store clerk that doesn’t even remember the guy. There’s no real evidence on the body, and nothing else that we got from witnesses. Even his house turned up nothing of interest.” Whoever snatched this guy was good. The girl had a similar MO too- no one saw anything and there was no evidence left behind. It irritated her how impeccable the crime scenes were, even with both bodies being found.

James considers one of the open files sitting in front of him for a long moment before sitting back in his seat. “Why the change in how the bodies were found?” he asks and Natasha’s brows draw together.

“What do you mean?” she asks.

“I mean Jenna was… displayed. Found might be a bit of a loose term when she was dumped in a public park all but nailed to a tree. This was an obvious show of pride- it says ‘look what I’ve done’. Schmidt was nothing like that; his being found was an accident. He was off the beaten path,” he says, gesturing at another file sitting on his desk.

“So what are you saying?” Natasha asks.

James considers things for a long moment, “I wonder if this is even the same guy or if we accidentally found another killer with a similar motive to the first guy.”

She shakes her head, “what are the chances, James? Come on- finding two killers that mutilated their victims in the same way they tortured others, both used a knife to finally kill them, and both showing a clear enjoyment of and aptitude for torture? The chances are minimal at best. Besides, the first murder was twelve years ago. He would have been younger, impulsive. It would explain why the MO was so different. Maybe this was his first kill.”

The age would make sense- probably early twenties if Phil’s profiles held up right and they always did. The man had a nose for this kind of thing; one Natasha would be suspicious of if she didn’t know him so well. Still- young and impulsive explains the need for his work to be seen, to be enjoyed. The towns’ people certainly didn’t enjoy it, but there were plenty of whispers about how Jenna deserved what she got. Natasha thought they found it easier for them to blame Jenna for harming their children than it was to blame themselves for not noticing. She was sure their guy would realize that putting bodies on display like that would attract attention and attention meant getting caught but this guy was obviously smart enough to evade the law.

“This wasn’t his first kill,” James says. “There was no hesitation here, no experimentation. There was no evidence either, no sign that this was an impulsive decision. He knew what he was doing and how to get it done. First timers aren’t generally so… thorough.”

Natasha was inclined to agree, but she wasn’t ready to give James’ thought process too much more thought. But she also knew that she didn’t want to give it thought because that meant something else entirely. “If there were two killers,” she says slowly, “what would be the affect of claiming that one person was responsible for their work?”

“Catastrophe,” Phil says, making her and James jump. “I’m glad to see you two have already reached my conclusion. Too much was different even if a lot was similar. One is an attention seeker, the other is happy to fly under the radar.”

“Then how come we haven’t seen more of the first guy?” James asks, voicing Natasha’s opinion.

“Because we don’t know what we’re looking for yet,” Phil says, “but this guy is getting his kicks somehow, even if it isn’t through the display of bodies. He’s smart though; he’ll know to cover his ass. So will the second guy.”

“And their reaction to us telling the public that they’re the same person? You said that would end in catastrophe but what does that mean specifically?” Natasha asks. She can see that James appreciates her asking what he was thinking.

Phil sighs, “there’s only two ways I see this ending. One, these two find each other and destroy each other. Or two, they team up.”

James and Natasha exchange a look, “team up? The first guy is flashy, prideful. Probably a narcissist, there’s no way he’d team up with anyone. He’d be way too full of himself,” James says.

This earns him a soft, sad smile from Phil. “You aren’t wrong, but I think this one is more of a sensitive narcissist. I think he felt bad for the kids and that’s why he chose this victim- the display wasn’t for the adults, it was for the kids. It was a bright ‘here, you’re nightmare is over and better yet she got what was coming to her’. In this case empathy makes him more dangerous because it means he can connect. Lets hope he doesn’t connect to the other killer. He feels empathy too.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Omg. I have been SO busy! My classes don't even have that much work but somehow I have no time? I have to work on my time management skills lol.
> 
> Anyways, have another chapter!

Tony watches Pepper get ready until she gets annoyed with him. “Stop watching me like a vulture. It’s creepy,” she tells him.

He considers her for a moment and turns away, “there’s something wrong with him,” he says for probably the fifth time that night.

“No, there’s something wrong with _you_ , you just want misery to have company,” she says.

“I’m not miserable. Well, at least not about that. And I don’t want company; you know I prefer the bots to people and that I always have. I’ve only ever had two friends and I had to pay you and then threaten to kill you to keep you around,” he points out. “You just don’t want me to be right.”

He can see from the look on her face that his guess is correct. Usually reading people wasn’t his strong suit but Pepper was an exception, and Rhodey. They both felt so strongly it was hard to misread them and that was one of the things he liked about them both. For the most part they took out all the guesswork.

“You aren’t right,” Pepper says softly but she isn’t looking at him. She doesn’t want to because she’s afraid she’s wrong, which she is.

“Fine, but when something happens to you just know that I told you first and then call me. I’ll take care of it,” he tells her. He turns to walk away, unfortunately he had paperwork to do and neither he nor Pepper liked when she had to hound him for it, but Pepper calls him back. He turns back around to face her and tilts his head to the side in question.

“You’d do that? You’d… take care of me?” she asks, skirting around what she was really asking.

Would you kill for me if you thought the person deserved it was what she was asking. “Yeah, of course. Now go on your date with your totally-a-creep and if you need assistance you know I’ll come. I track your phone,” he tells her and he walks away to her shocked noise.

Honestly, it was his technology, what else did she expect? He needed to know where she was in case she thought of doing something stupid. He got alerts every time she was near a police station too long. Shockingly he’s only ever gotten four alerts, all within the first year of working together. Any others he got after that were coincidence- usually the cause of a traffic jam in her area placing her in close enough proximity to a police station that his fail safe methods kicked in. He always made sure that was the cause though.

*

Steve liked that all Pepper talked about was Tony, but for new reasons now. It still allowed him to maintain his status as a good listener; someone who was attentive and interested in his partner’s life, but it also meant he got more information on Tony and he really, really wanted that. Especially since his research into this… Jenna person’s murder led him nowhere useful. He wanted to know why the cops stuck her next to Schmidt but he found nothing outside of a few coincidences to hold them together. Sure, there were more coincidences than normal but the differences between Steve and whoever the other killer was were huge. For one he’s never felt the need to drop his bodies in a highly travelled area just for the glory of it.

He was smarter than that, though he had to guess the other killer was too. Nothing like that ever surfaced again and people figured it was a one-off thing. Steve knew otherwise because he knew what a taste for killing looked like and Jenna had it all over her, literally. But there was no record of something like it before or since, leading Steve to believe that there was something special about that victim in particular. That wasn’t his first; he was far too skilled at torture for that. All of his experimentation had been there and gone. The fact that there was nothing before or after was telling though, especially considering the… extravagance of the scene. it was staged well, meticulously. He wanted her found in the exact way he left her.

Her body was a message, but to whom Steve didn’t know. If it were a warning more bodies would have come. If the message was ‘look at me, look what I can do’ than more bodies would have shown up. If the message was just to scare people and incite panic more bodies would have come. But none of those things happened so what was the message? Steve had no idea and no leads on who killed the teen either. Usually he was quite good at this- the old phrase ‘it takes one to know one’ came to his mind when hunting killers. He almost always knew who it was when he went over the suspect list but this time nothing felt right and it was frustrating him.

So he took pleasure in listening to Pepper talk about Tony, whom Steve asked after in the interest of looking polite but really he was more interested in who Tony was. He still wanted to find something that confirmed what he thought was true about Tony, which was dangerous and stupid but he _needed_ it. No one understood him, even Bucky, and he wanted… he wanted someone that could see that part of him without flinching and without becoming one of his victims.

No, it was more than a want at this point. It was a need. Humans, he knew, were social creatures and maybe he wasn’t so different from others in that way. All he wanted was someone he could share more than a morning jog with. Someone like Bucky but without all the secret keeping. If Bucky knew he was a serial killer he would have been horrified. In a way Steve supposed he was lucky Bucky was dead because living a double life with Sam was exhausting and Bucky was always so much closer to him than Sam is.

“Am I annoying you?” Pepper asks somewhat suddenly, “usually people don’t like it so much when I talking about Tony.”

Jealousy, he guesses, considering she had once thought he made a comment out of jealousy too. “No, I don’t mind. Clearly he’s important to you and anyone who’s willing to date you should make an effort to listen to the things you care about, including the boss you seem so fond of. I’m not annoyed, I’m intrigued. You don’t seem like the type to fall for Stark’s brand of charm,” he says. Especially considering in his youth his charm erred more on the side of misogyny, something he knew Pepper would have no patience for. She was in far too high a position in her life to put up with that sort of thing.

Pepper laughs, “I wasn’t fooled by his charm at all. I think I confused him at first, he isn’t used to people trying to see what’s underneath,” she says.

“And did you manage? To see what was underneath, I mean,” Steve clarifies.

The expression on Pepper’s face is odd, “in a manner of speaking, yes. Personally I think he still holds me at arms length even though I know more about him than anyone else.”

More than anyone else. Steve wondered if that meant more than even Tony’s military best friend Rhodey. The man had a career most would kill for in the military, Steve knew, he used to hear talk all the time about him. Rhodey was one hell of a guy, and now he knew that it was likely he wasn’t as close to his best friend as he thought he was if his assistant was closer to him. Granted ‘assistant’ was an almost insulting name for Pepper’s job, but it was her job title nonetheless.

“Must be a privilege to know someone so well when they try and push everyone away,” he says.

Pepper thinks on that for a moment and then nods. “He has his moments- actually near every moment of his is a moment that makes me want to smack him or quit my job- but sometimes it’s all worth it just to see him say something that doesn’t make me want to rip my hair out,” she says.

Steve laughs, “sounds like how most people talk about their kids,” he says.

Pepper laughs, “oh he might as well be my kid, he has no concept of _anything_. He used to think bread cost fifteen dollars. _Bread_!” she says, waving a hand around.

This time Steve’s laugh is genuine because that was _absurd_. “Seriously?” he asks and Pepper nods, immediately going off on a new series of stories on how absolutely out of touch Tony was with pretty much everything. It was fairly insightful and Steve listened intently, asking questions when appropriate and adding other questions when he just wanted to know more. Tony Stark was shaping up to be pretty interesting.

*

From what Tony could find Johan Schmidt was a Grade A piece of shit, someone Tony easily would have broke pattern for to kill, but there was no real reason for the cops to think _he_ did it aside for some minor connections to how Jenna was killed. If they knew anything they would realize that nothing about the two crimes matched up at all, but then cops were pretty stupid most of the time. Still, Schmidt had no connection to his victim aside from also being the scum of the earth. He couldn’t believe people still cared about skin color of all things; he had no patience for that shit. He had enough of watching people treat Rhodey like crap in college. Maybe killing off Klan members would shake things up a little for him; it had to be just as satisfying as killing off child abusers. Maybe this other killer had the right idea after all.

He goes back to studying Schmidt and his ridiculous release that convinces Tony that he could probably confess to murder and walk away unharmed when he decides on a whim to look up people who were in hotels at the time. In all honesty he didn’t expect to find much or anything really but when a familiar name pops up in his list he shakes his head. “Got you,” Tony says, smiling at the screen. As it turned out one Steve Rogers was in town at the same time and left as soon as Schmidt went missing. Tony thought that murder seemed to pop up an awful lot around this guy and by now he knew it was too often to be a coincidence. There was that kid from his area when Steve was in his late teens, that one guy who supposedly killed his best friend, and some other jackass that showed up bloody and tortured. Two out of the three others might have alibis but another connection at least in location to an area where some other guy went missing and then showed up dead eight months later? Steve had to have killed them all.

In the interest of making sure he wasn’t jumping to conclusions- which he knew he wasn’t given that no one had this many connections to murders- he looks up what Steve had even been doing in town. He found nothing useful, which he figured would happen, and then he did something strange. He erases all record of Steve having ever been in Texas at the time and sits back to consider why. Why questions always annoyed him- he preferred ‘how’ questions because they were easier to answer- but he still wondered about his motivation behind the action. He had no stakes in Steve getting caught, no reason to want him to stay out of prison. He only met the guy once and insulted him the entire night so why help him?

Eventually he decides he did it because he wanted to be right, he wanted Steve to be a serial killer because he wanted to know someone like him. Pepper was great, and he cared about Rhodey, but Rhodey didn’t even know who he was and Pepper was almost scared of him. They weren’t his equals; they didn’t understand him and he knew neither would even make an effort, probably for good reason. Steve would be different though, he’d understand the need to kill, he’d understand why Tony did it without ever asking why. Unlike everyone else he wouldn’t need a reason, he’d just know how good killing people felt. He’d know about the rush you got, about the joy of stalking your victim and taking them down, how it felt to make them wish for death… And now Tony had a way to get Steve to pay attention to him. He helped Steve out after all, now he had to listen to Tony lest he give the cops an anonymous tip with all the information he gathered.

He sets about looking into Steve Rogers’ daily habits because he had to have some space where he was killing his victims, he couldn’t be doing it in his white picket fence suburbia shithole so he obviously had some other space to go.

As it turned out he had a cabin not too far from where Schmidt’s body was found and Tony changes those records too, changing Steve’s name to Grant Ward. Grant because it was Steve’s middle name and Ward because he was trying to ward cops off of him. It was very clever in his opinion. With that he decides he’s going to use his information for the greater good and he sets out to Steve’s cabin in the woods.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for murder and references to torture.

Steve gets to the cabin way later than he wanted to, but he got there all the same. What he doesn’t expect is to find a car already there, a pretty silver Lexus that stood out like a sore thumb, and his suspicion rises. “Jesus Rogers, if I wanted to stay hidden I would have parked the car elsewhere, dumbass,” a familiar voice calls to him.

He looks up to see, of all people, Tony Stark leaning casually against the doorframe of the cabin.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he asks for lack of a better response.

Tony grins, “well if I had any doubt you were a serial killer the victim you have strapped down in the living room removed all doubt. Nice handiwork by the way, no real finesse but we all have flaws,” he says in the same casual tone as before.

Well, Steve supposed that he wasn’t wrong in assuming Tony was like him if he was this calm about finding a slashed up victim in his living room. He better not be dead… “And you’re here because…?” he asks, wondering if Stark was trying to distract him before cops showed up.

“I’m here because you’re terrible at covering your tracks. I had to cover up that you were in Texas when Schmidt went missing, and I had to change the name of who owned this cabin given that it was basically ten feet from Schmidt’s fucking body. And lets not even discuss how stupid it was to kill your childhood bully, or the guy who killed your best friend. Killing 101- don’t kill people you know, dipshit. You need me,” Tony tells him. His speech sounds rehearsed, like he’s gone through this a half a dozen times before Steve even got here.

And Steve had to admit he was at least partially grateful for Tony’s help. “And how do I know you aren’t fucking with me?” he asks, narrowing his eyes suspiciously.

This gets another grin out of Tony, “don’t play stupid, I know you know what I am. You saw it that night at the party but since you’re in the interest of playing stupid I’m a serial killer too. Don’t believe me? Fine, I could always finish off that victim you’ve got in there,” he says, gesturing behind him to the cabin. “Not like it’ll take much but it would make me at least as guilty as you are. Sound like I’d be trustworthy enough after that?” Tony asks, raising an eyebrow.

For a guy Steve took to be highly impulsive and arrogant he clearly wasn’t stupid. Maybe Steve misjudged him or there was more to Tony than what he was seeing. “Fine, but you kill him my way,” he tells Tony, walking up to the cabin and ignoring Tony’s laughter as he walks past him and into the small structure that housed his weekend hobby. He’d have time to ask Tony more about how he found him later.

*

He watches curiously as Tony regards his victim, examining him at near eye level. “Clearly he didn’t like you much. Brutal,” Tony murmurs, poking at a particularly nasty gouge he had taken out of his current victim’s leg. That earns a squeal, muffled by cloth, out of his victim. Tony rolls his eyes at him. “You’re sloppy,” he tells Steve.

He immediately goes on edge because _excuse_ him? “Oh, and I suppose you’re so much cleaner?” he asks, raising an eyebrow. Tony rolls his eyes again, a frequent gesture apparently.

“Of course not, but I don’t act like a child trying to cut the Christmas turkey either. What even _is_ the purpose of half of this?” Tony asks, flicking another wound on his victim. This doesn’t get nearly as strong as a reaction as the first one and Tony looks disappointed by it.

“The way I kill my victims is none of your business,” Steve says primly.

“Is so. It became my business as soon as I started covering your tracks so please, explain your methodologies, I’m curious,” Tony says. He leans against the edge of the table his victim is on and Steve has to blink a few times to get used to the image. Tony is clean, polished, and poised. Compared to the bloody lump that used to be Arnim Zola it was a strange juxtaposition. Tony is pretty too, and Steve could see the predatory glint in his eyes as he regards him, and when he looks down at Zola. His moves are calculated and the risks were assessed- something that surprises Steve considering he knows all about how impulsive Tony Stark is. Maybe that was all a part of the person he constructed for himself to not look suspicious- Steve knew a thing or two about playing roles to not have people look too closely.

“You’re looking at my methodologies,” he tells Tony.

Tony looks back down at Zola, who seems to be becoming more afraid by the second. Steve wonders if the man was stupid enough to think Tony was around to help and had held onto that hope until Steve got here and they decided to chat casually about his impending death. He should know better, Steve thinks, because if Tony were here to try and help his victim out he’d become the next in line. Steve wouldn’t much _like_ having to do that given Tony’s celebrity status but he certainly would. He’s talked himself out of more suspicious situations than what this could have been.

“Seriously? You just slash at them a bit and then dump them? God, you’re so tasteless,” Tony mumbles and, once again, he rolls his eyes. Steve was getting more and more annoyed with that action as it persisted.

“And what are your obviously superior methods, hmm?” he asks and then something clicks. He sees Tony watch the pieces click together too and the man smiles. “You killed that teen. Jesus, I thought I was brutal but you took it too a whole new level. You have issues,” Steve tells him, wrinkling his nose almost delicately. It was probably pretty strange to find himself disgusted with serial killers when he was one but he can’t help but find Tony… what was it Tony had called him? Tasteless. Tony was tasteless.

His reaction gets a sharp laugh out of Tony, who jostles Zola and gets a few whimpers for his efforts, “he thinks _I_ have issues when he’s got you strapped to a table with a bunch of knife wounds that sort of resemble the first time I dissected something. Actually I was neater and more organized about it. Rogers, I think you might be the one with issues here,” Tony tells him.

“Maybe so,” Steve agrees. “But I don’t kill kids.”

Something about his words just about throws Tony off the deep end because he watches about fifteen emotions- _real_ emotions- fly across Tony’s face before he settles with a hard, stony glare. “Neither do I. Seventeen is plenty old enough to know right from wrong, I’d know, the first time I killed someone I was two years younger than that and I knew what I was doing. So did Jenna. She got what was coming to her,” he says in a low, dangerous tone that tells Steve he’s not out of danger yet. Everything about his body language had changed and Steve was curious about it. He had gone from relaxed and conversational to combative- he looked like he was trying to size Steve up. If he thought he’d win that fight he wouldn’t, Steve already knew he was stronger and this was his territory. He knew it better than Tony could even hope to so escape wasn’t happening. He wonders if Tony actually mapped out the risk of this situation. If Steve didn’t agree to his little plan he could very well end up dead. Steve would hardly be sad to see him go.

“Law states eighteen is legal adulthood,” Steve says, raising an eyebrow and wondering how far he could push Tony before he snapped. It was a bad habit or so Bucky used to tell him. He used to do stuff like this all the time- he’d find the biggest asshole in the room and push until something happened. Usually it didn’t take much but Tony was surprisingly controlled given the impulsive persona given to him by the media.

Tony snorts, “the law barely even knows what it’s doing. Besides, seems pretty stupid for a serial killer to be on the side of the law. Trust me, Rogers, I know kids and I know adults. Age is irrelevant- it’s actions you have to look for. I know people my age that are less mature than some fifteen year olds I’ve met. Pepper would probably argue I’m the immature one of that comparison. Jenna was no child, and by the time she was done tormenting the neighborhood kids neither were any of them.”

Steve tilts his head to the side as Tony’s jaw clenches in clear anger. That one was an easy emotion to read on people in part because it was genuinely hard to misread and in part because Steve was so used to seeing people angry with him. “You feel something for the kids,” Steve says, guessing at Tony’s emotions but the surprise that flickers across his face tells Steve that, for once, he was right about his guess. Usually his guesses were hit and miss, especially if he didn’t know someone well enough to know how they reacted to things.

“So what if I do?” Tony asks, chin tilting up in a clear invitation for a challenge.

“Hmm. I’m sure that says something interesting about you psychologically,” Steve says. He wasn’t much qualified to give an assessment but he’d certainly like to hear one.

“And I’m sure your disgust with serial killers given that you are one says something interesting about you too,” Tony says. “So am I going to kill the poor bastard you butchered or not? I have things to do and you,” he says to Zola, “stop squirming- it’s annoying. Honestly judging by the damage done to you I guess you don’t get an open casket funeral,” Tony mumbles.

“He doesn’t get a funeral at all. I only bury them because I’m not fond of the idea of getting caught,” Steve tells him. That wasn’t actually true, he hasn’t cared about being caught in a long time. Not since Bucky, but it was routine to bury them down so he did. He wondered if some idiot profiler would chalk that up to guilt when it was more of a practicality thing. He couldn’t just leave dead bodies lying around all over the place and burying the bodies hid them well enough. Except in Schmidt’s case.

“I’m sure that says something interesting about you too,” Tony says, looking smug and thinking along a similar line as Steve apparently. “But you suck at this ‘trying not to get caught’ thing considering you practically buried Schmidt in your back yard,” he points out. Steve decides to not tell Tony where the rest of his victims were buried and rolls his eyes at the man instead.

“Just kill this asshole and get it over with,” Steve tells him.

Tony doesn’t need much more of an invitation. He pulls a knife out from underneath his suit jacket and jams it into the inside of Zola’s upper thigh and Steve sighs. “You told me to go ahead, you didn’t specify how,” Tony says and he pulls the knife out and steps back quickly as the blood pours out. He hit an artery then, one in which Zola would bleed out quickly from. Steve raises an eyebrow at his choice. “What? I didn’t want to draw it out and he was mostly dead anyways. Suffered a lot of blood loss too, there should be more blood than that. You don’t treat your victims very well,” Tony says in an almost chastising tone.

Steve lets out a short laugh, “and you _do_?” he asks, narrowing his eyes.

“Actually yeah. I tend to keep them around for awhile, I like playing with my food. They last longer if they’re treated well and honestly it makes their deaths that much more satisfying,” Tony says, lips tilting up a little in a smile as he turns on his heel and walks out of the cabin.

Well, that wasn’t how Steve expected the night to go. Tony is long gone before Steve realizes that now he had nothing to take out his pent up aggression on thanks to Tony killing off his victim. Great- he was indebted to the man and now he had to find someone new to kill. If it wouldn’t be such a pain in his ass he would have put Stark at the top of his list.

*

Tony doesn’t have to wait long for Steve to find him and he appreciates Steve’s style when he does. “Nice bike,” Tony says as he passes Steve’s ride. He looked good in leather too, even if it conflicted with his neatly arranged Sunday school hair.

“Thanks, I basically built it from the ground up. Are you going to explain how you even found me? Aside from dating Pepper. And speaking of- how am I supposed to deal with that?” Steve asks.

He whirls around, “what?” he asks in an urgent tone.

“How did you find me, aside from my connection to Pepper, and how the hell am I supposed to deal with that?” Steve asks but Tony shakes his head.

“Useless information,” he mumbles more to himself than Steve, “no before that. What did you say?”

Steve frowns, “that I basically built the bike from the ground up,” Steve says.

Tony gives the bike a closer look, examining the workmanship that went into it with more interest. “You’re engineering isn’t bad,” he says as he walks closer, bending a little to examine the structure. “Your engine could use work and there are a few mechanical issues but you’re… talented.” That was rare for him to think and even more rare for him to say. People butchered engineering all the time and it made him equal parts sad and angry every time it happened. When someone was learning he was lenient, but when it came to self-professed experts like Justin Hammer he was highly tempted to break his pattern and just kill them. There was nothing he loathed more than someone who claimed to be an expert when they weren’t one. It was insulting.

“I don’t care about my engine, Tony, what do I do about Pepper?” Steve asks, annoyed.

“Just dump her, why are you asking me stupid questions. Jesus, it’s like you’re a child and I somehow ended up your big brother. This is not a position I like, by the way, so find a way to contribute,” Tony tells him. He turns his attention back to the bike and ignores whatever Steve says next in order to think up better designs for Steve’s engine. There are literally thousands, most of them more cost efficient and more environmentally friendly.

“Don’t bother talking to him, when he takes an interest in machines he doesn’t really bother with humans anymore,” a woman’s voice says. Pepper, Tony’s brain supplies and he kicks back into action, reaching for his abandoned suitcase and pulling out a file.

“Hate to be the one to say I told you so,” he tells Pepper, handing her the file over his head as he looks over the chrome details of Steve’s design. Not something he would choose but JARVIS once called his taste ostentatious and he wasn’t wrong. Steve was far more understated and Tony thought that was a shame given the bike’s structure.

Pepper’s loud scream and the sound of the papers flapping in the wind draws him back out of his thoughts, that and being suddenly lifted from the ground. Tony realizes he forgot the important detail of Pepper knowing about his being a serial killer and Steve not knowing that and sighs as Pepper instinctually runs to catch all the fluttering papers. None would escape her attention. “Put me down you big oaf, she knows already,” Tony tells Steve, struggling a bit to test his hold. It was good but Tony was smart- Steve’s hold didn’t matter if he could just use intelligence as an escape. Tony has faced meaner and scarier than Steve and won.

Steve frowns, “what?”

“What, what? Did you think I did this all on my own? Come on, you _had_ to have noticed that my reputation vastly improved almost as soon as Pepper entered my life,” he points out. “Now put me down.” That was the only warning he was going to get but lucky for Steve he heeds Tony’s warning and does as he says.

Tony’s words seem to sink in and probably a half dozen other realizations too because Steve looks surprised. “How long?” he asks eventually.

“About fifteen or so years. We met in our early twenties, dated for awhile too but then she found out that inventing wasn’t the only thing I did in my lab. She almost died too but Pepper isn’t really one to go down easy so she bargained for her life. Obviously it worked,” Tony notes, nodding to Pepper carefully sticking the picture proof of Steve’s extracurricular activities back in the neat file Tony handed her. She looks ashen and shaky but she’ll get over that, Tony knew she would, she was resilient.

“She’s been involved in all you murders for _fifteen_ years?” Steve asks, obviously not believing it though something must be occurring to him because Tony can see him thinking.

“No,” Pepper answers in a strong, clear voice that contradicts her shaken appearance. “I’m more involved in… other aspects of his life. I make sure he looks more human to the masses, less like a serial killer. I know about his murders but the only thing I could tell you about them is that they happen. He’s in charge of cleaning up his own messes there.” Yes, and she cleans up his messes everywhere else. He found it to be a decent trade off though he doubted she’d agree.

Steve turns back to Tony, “I keep underestimating you…” he murmurs.

Tony smiles but there’s no humor in it. Baring his teeth would be a more accurate description of the action, “you aren’t the only one to do so. Be careful though, everyone else who’s done that has turned up dead.”

*

Pepper’s hands shake as Tony’s words play over and over in her head. _I hate to be the one to say I told you so_ he’d said in an almost mocking tone. He’d been _so_ sure and so had she. How was it even _possible_ for her to have run into two serial killers in her lifetime? There was no way that was even normal, there had to be something wrong with her or… _something_.

“Relax Pepper, you aren’t his type. Apparently he’s basically that one show about the serial killer, you know the one, he works for the police?” Tony says, paying no real attention to her emotions. It wasn’t unusual but now she found it grating. Couldn’t he just be normal for ten fucking seconds?

“ _Dexter_ ,” she says more out of instinct than anything. She always knew what Tony was thinking, how to complete his sentences, clean up his messes, and now apparently find him a partner. What kind of screwed up person was she that she was constantly on the same wavelength as a _murderer_?

“Yeah, _Dexter_. He kills killers apparently and honestly I think that’s stupid. What kind of murderer kills other murderers? That’s basically begging to be killed. Anyways you’re not a killer, you just help one sometimes. I think that makes me more his type than you so you can stop panicking. Besides, he’s never manage kill you anyways. I’d kill him long before he got the chance,” Tony says casually, giving the words no thought as he says them. He never did- to him the words were simple and casual, like discussing the weather. Pepper wants to throw up but her gag reflex has long since moved past being disgusted by Tony’s blasé talk of murder.

“Would you shut up!” Pepper yells at him. Her outburst clearly catches him by surprise and she can see him thinking, trying to figure out what led to this but he wouldn’t come to a conclusion. He’d know it had something to do with Steve and murder but his ability to empathize only went so far. Not very far really.

“Uh, something wrong?” Tony asks eventually, probably hitting the block Pepper thought he would.

“Yes, Tony, there’s something wrong,” she hisses. “I just wanted one thing in my life to be normal, _one thing_!” she yells at him. “And you had to take that away! You’re like a black hole that sucks up everything good around you. God, no wonder Rhodey left you! You’re horrible!” she shouts. She wipes her hair out of her face with a shaking hand and turns her back on Tony, who looked shocked and a little hurt. She wasn’t stupid enough to fall for that rouse- hurt wasn’t an emotion he felt often if ever.

All she had wanted was one thing in her life that Tony didn’t over shadow, one thing to herself. She didn’t have her job, she didn’t have a social life to speak of, she wouldn’t risk pets, she had no friends because her time was always taken up by Tony, and the one time she tries to branch out to find some kind of stability elsewhere he snatches it away just as fast as she found it. All she wanted was _one_ goddamn thing to herself, that wasn’t too much to ask!

“Pepper,” Tony says in a soft, almost caring tone. Well that was new; faking caring about people wasn’t exactly his strong suit. The man was an absolute asshole to near everyone just because he felt like it. Because people _annoyed_ him.

“What?” she snaps, only half turning to face him.

“I didn’t… I never meant to take something from you. I just saw what you were walking into and tried to get you out before something bad happened. Honestly I don’t know how you didn’t see it, you’re not a stupid woman,” he says in the same soft, caring tone he started with.

Finally she turns to face him and he looks concerned too, and worried. If she didn’t know any better she’d say it was genuine too. Actually as she looked closer she realized that Tony couldn’t be faking the emotion, not with this level of accuracy anyways. There was too much that was… was… human about it. When Tony faked emotions, which was often, he never did it very well. Something was always a little off-kilter about it and people always noticed, they just attributed it to his being an arrogant ass, not a probable psychopath.

“You’re actually sorry,” Pepper says, frowning in surprise. She tries to find the cracks in the mask, finding where he was faking it but he wasn’t.

Tony shrugs, “maybe for the first time in my life yes, I’m sorry. Genuinely sorry, not that fake shit I peddle to everyone else. I didn’t… you’re career driven, ambitious. I thought your job gave you some kind of fulfillment so I didn’t really think you needed much more. And you don’t seem the type to try and fix your life with romance either,” Tony says, frowning as he considered the possibility and apparently couldn’t quite get there. Pepper couldn’t either- she chose romance because those relationships tended to be fleeting and something that didn’t last. It was friendship, she’s found, that can weather through rough times.

She slumps a little, “I wasn’t looking for romance to fix my life, I was looking for a distraction that would be temporary, something that I knew wouldn’t last. Romance fit the bill. I… I’m sorry. This isn’t your fault, or mine, or hell, it isn’t even Steve’s fault technically. You’re not really a black hole that sucks up all the good, I was the one who chose to be here,” she says in a soft, almost defeated tone.

Tony lets out a sharp laugh, “you bargained for your life and I found use for you, that’s not choice, that’s coercion if I put it nicely. You… if you want you can go. I won’t come after you and Steve wouldn’t be that hard to deal with if he complained. Go have your life- I’ll give you a good severance package for your troubles. God knows you’ve earned it,” he says, shaking his head.

Yes, she has, but she had already made up her mind before Tony had even finished speaking. “No, I’m staying here. It’s stifling sometimes but I can’t really imagine my life any other way. I… like my life here, I like you. I don’t know what that says about me but I’d be miserable if I left and I know it.” For so long her life has been all about Tony, so much so that she really couldn’t imagine her life without him. No, it wasn’t Tony per se she couldn’t life without; it was just the way her life was organized at the moment. Things were always busy and high stakes- she liked the pressure of it and that’s what she couldn’t give up. It’s why she went into business in the first place. He did have a habit of weaseling his way into every faucet of her existence and while she might not appreciate it that much she was strangely grateful to him for it.

She probably needed therapy or electro shock treatment or something to actually _want_ this life but… well, she did want this life. Despite her unusual entrance into her circumstances and Tony’s occasional threats on her life- threats she knew he’d never make good on even if they still scared her- she did choose to be here. If she left she’d be killed for it or she would have been before Tony’s offer to let her go, but she stopped fearing death a long time ago thanks to working with a serial killer. Now she mostly feared _how_ she died.

For a moment Tony considers her but then, to her surprise, he leans forward and hugs her tightly. “Thank you,” he whispers.

Pepper hugs him back more out of surprise at first, but it melts into genuine affection. “You’re welcome,” she whispers back. For a long time they stay like that, holding each other in a weird sort of intimacy she was sure they both thought Tony was incapable of but found pleasant nonetheless.


	7. Chapter 7

Considering other’s feelings wasn’t exactly a strength of Tony’s- it was a general rule that he didn’t give a shit about other people. But he did genuinely care about Pepper and he did on some level want to see her happy. He also recently learned that he wasn’t exactly fond of feeling like he was the source of her unhappiness. It was a strange sticky feeling that stuck with him and refused to shake off no matter how hard he tried.

If this was how normal people felt when they upset someone he was happy to mostly avoid that feeling because it was horrible and unpleasant. He couldn’t imagine feeling like that every time he displeased someone, that would be way too much. No wonder people killed themselves, Tony would too if he had to deal with normal emotions. It really only reaffirmed that of all the problems he had with himself his general lack of caring and his capacity to kill weren’t on the list of things he’d change given the chance. He would have liked to be a few inches taller though.

“Happy is single,” Tony tells Pepper as she walks into the living room with her head buried in some papers.

She looks up in surprise, “what was that?” she asks.

“Happy, you know, my driver, he’s single. He probably thinks you’re pretty and if he doesn’t he needs glasses,” Tony says and Pepper lets out a laugh.

“What?” she asks again but this time there was a new implication. Tony wasn’t entirely sure what it was though so he shrugs.

“Just saying, he’s single so if you really want something normal that bad Happy is painfully mediocre at pretty much everything. Can’t get much more normal than that,” he tells her.

Pepper starts laughing again but this time she doesn’t stop as she doubles over, clutching the back of the couch with one hand and her stomach with the other. “Oh Tony, I can’t believe you’re trying to play match maker. I have a serial killer trying to set me up with his driver. A script writer couldn’t make this shit up,” she says more to herself than Tony. She starts laughing again and Tony sighs.

“Fine, but when someone settles for Happy don’t say I didn’t tell you he was free,” he says. He walks over to take the papers she had from her and frowns. “Information on Steve Rogers?” he asks.

This finally seems to sober Pepper and she straightens up, smoothing out her clothing even though it wasn’t winkled. “Yes, everything from his birth until last night honestly, every single thing of importance. This is what I deemed important but I sent everything I found to JARVIS in case you want to go through the unedited version too. If you’re going to involve yourself with him you should know he’s far more reckless than you are. You’re smart enough to cover your tracks even when you do stupid things on a whim. I don’t think he cares very much whether or not he gets caught, not really. You can’t afford that kind of recklessness,” she says in a logical, well-reasoned tone. It was a far cry from her reaction to this two days ago but that was because Pepper was resilient, so much so that Tony was genuinely impressed with her ability to adapt.

Normal people, he’s learned, liked watching murderers on screen and in horror movies but they didn’t much like them in real life. Pepper, considering she clearly felt emotions like a normal person did, reacted rather well to all the stuff Tony threw at her. “I can deal with recklessness,” he tells her, “I deal with me all the time. I still can’t believe he kills killers though, there have been literal TV shows written with that premise and it was embarrassing and bad on TV, real life didn’t make it any less stupid. Seems rather stupid to kill killers when you are a killer.”

Pepper shakes her head, “god, if I didn’t know any better I’d say it was some weird, twisted self-hate. Like he’s symbolically killing himself over and over again because he can’t bring himself to do the real thing.”

Tony squints at her for a moment, “was that psychology? Because it sounded ridiculous. This is why I put no faith in that fake science, too wish-y wash-y. And I already did my research on Steve, how do you think I found out he was a serial killer?” Once he started to really dig it only took him a matter of _hours_ to put things together too. He might be far more intelligent than the average person but even Happy could have put the pieces together in just as short a time frame and he was far more normal than anyone else Tony knew.

Pepper sighs and puts her file down, “do you think there’s something wrong with me?” she asks as she ventures over to the coffee machine.

He considers her for a moment, unsure what she’s looking for here. “No, not really. Do you think there’s something wrong with you?” he asks, wondering if her question was meant to be rhetorical.

“I’ve managed to run into _two_ separate serial killers in my life time and kissed them both. I slept with you, on several occasions. There has to be something wrong with me,” she says more to herself than Tony.

“Or you’re attracted to psychopaths. Technically I don’t qualify for the diagnoses, but I score high on all the tests. My nannies were concerned about my general lack of empathy for all things living, I’ve always preferred machines, so a few had me tested behind my parents’ backs. Anyways, we tend to gravitate towards certain fields. CEOs, journalists, law enforcement, military, business- you gravitated towards a few of those fields yourself. You prefer talking to people in the scope of those fields. You were bound to find a few bad seeds. That’s not a reflection of who you are,” he reasons.

He wondered if it was, but not in the way Pepper thought. He wondered if there was something about him, and Steve too, that drew her to them both. Maybe it was their strong personalities, or maybe she could sense something about them that needed organizing or something and so she was naturally drawn to them. Maybe it was pure chance though he doubted that. It was unlikely to find yourself in Pepper’s position more than once.

“Maybe I’m attracted to psychopaths? Was that supposed to make me feel better?” Pepper asks, turning to face him with an annoyed expression on her face.

“Guess not,” he mumbles. “Just saying, obviously something about us drew you in. Or something about you drew us in. One is less terrifying than the other, take your pick,” he tells her. He didn’t think it was the second one himself- there was nothing about Pepper that immediately stood out to him aside from her beauty. Once she spoke she had an obvious intelligence, which always drew him in, but not in a way he thought was specific to his status as a serial killer. He just had no patience for idiots.

Even considering his actual feelings for her they took _years_ to develop into more than just an instinct to protect something that was protecting him. Even now he knew that caring about her didn’t make her that much of a priority in his life, he was just less likely to kill her and he didn’t want to upset her. This was basic stuff to normal people or so his experiences with Rhodey and Pepper told him.

“You’re horrible at comforting people,” Pepper mumbles, grabbing the now finished pot of coffee and pulling one of the two mugs Tony already set out towards her.

“I’m a serial killer Pep, I think that comes with the territory,” he points out.

*

Steve regards Tony sitting in his ridiculous chair looking too attractive for Steve’s liking. The whole situation reeked of power and it was clear Tony was the one holding it. He didn’t much like having the tables turned on him given that he was usually in Tony’s position and he wanted some of that power back. Of course sitting in the middle of an office in Stark Industries hardly allowed him the opportunity to knock Tony down a peg or two. No doubt a strategic choice on Tony’s part.

“What exactly do you want out of this?” Steve finally asks and Tony smiles, his dark eyes glinting a little like he’s won the game he was playing in his own mind just because Steve spoke first.

“Something new. Killing people has lost its luster, I’m hoping having you around might shake things up a bit,” he says. The way he says it implies Steve has no choice but to go through with Tony’s plan and he finds that curious.

“And if I say no?” he asks, lips tipping up a little in a smile.

Tony rolls his eyes; “I have more than enough evidence to land you in prison, Rogers. No one is going to question how I got it and even if they did I have better lawyers than you.”

Steve outright smiles at that and shakes his head. Stark was playing his hand heavy, except he didn’t have much of a hand. “What makes you think I even care about getting caught? Honestly I’ve made so many mistakes it’s a shock cops haven’t already managed to catch me. I don’t care about prison, Stark, so I guess you’re out of a bargaining chip,” he says in a smooth, pleasant voice that obviously annoys Tony. He shifts marginally in his chair, angling himself a little closer to Steve and he finds this move curious too. Tony just lost control of his plan, he would have thought Tony would be on the defensive, not the offensive. He examines Steve in silence, trying to determine if Steve was telling the truth.

For a moment Steve is sure Tony was going to call his bluff, which would be stupid given that he genuinely didn’t care. He covered his tracks enough but not nearly enough to be anything less than sloppy. He stopped caring after Bucky died- before that there was only one murder that linked back to him and that had been easily skirted thanks to Bucky lying for him. He never thought Steve could kill anyone and he’d been happy to lie about Steve being at his house. After Bucky though covering his tracks seemed pointless and he wasn’t sure why. It was hardly like Bucky was his partner in crime but his loss made Steve… unsettled he supposed and he was having a hard time settling back in. Prison was far from his list of things he cared about.

Tony doesn’t call his bluff though, instead he hands Steve a file and he takes it, curious. When he opens it he finds pictures of Sam of all people and frowns. “He’s almost as decorated a hero as you, except he actually earned it and you faked your way into people’s good graces. It’d be a shame to see him hurt,” Tony says in a casual tone, leaning back in his chair like he didn’t have a care in the world. _Asshole_. Of course he had a backup plan, Steve should have guessed that. In hindsight Tony’s impulsive nature had to have some kind of organization behind it, if he was as impulsive as he seemed he wouldn’t have been able to amass so much success.

“And what about Pepper? What’s holding me back from using her against you?” he asks, trying to gain traction back again.

That gets him a sharp laugh, “oh the time for you to use Pepper as a bargaining chip has come and passed, buddy. She won’t go anywhere near you and I won’t let you go anywhere near her. Besides, she’s quite capable when it comes to dealing with serial killers, she _will_ surprise you. So you’re back where you started,” Tony says.

Steve rolls his eyes, “I hope you know you’re not doing much to make me not tempted to kill you,” he says.

Tony snorts and laughs a little, “of course I’m not, I’m half tempted to see if you’ll do it,” he says, throwing Steve for a loop. He probably shouldn’t be so surprised, it wasn’t as if Tony had a lack of risk taking behaviors that all indicated that he’d just want to see what Steve would do.

“So you want a partner? What makes you think we’re compatible?” he asks, switching gears to keep Tony on his toes. It didn’t look like it was working considering the rough change in subject results in his eyes brightening a little in excitement.

“I’ve looked over your MO. I’m sure we can work something out since we favor the same instrument. You’re seriously lacking in style though, you need lessons but we can work on that,” Tony says, waving a hand around dismissively.

“Oh yeah, and I’m sure you’re a real artist,” Steve mumbles, rolling his eyes.

“If you ever saw my work you’d think so. But unlike you I’m not a fucking moron and I don’t leave evidence lying all around in some stupid attempt to test how stupid cops are. The answer is really fucking stupid, you didn’t need to leave bodies lying all around to prove that,” Tony says, rolling his eyes right back at Steve.

“It was one body, don’t exaggerate,” Steve says.

“Three if you count your childhood bully and the guy who supposedly killed your friend. Come on, people will notice the pattern; the fact that they haven’t already is a shock. So get your shit together, you might not care about prison but I do. My face is too pretty for prison,” Tony mumbles.

His face was too pretty outside of prison too but Steve won’t give him the satisfaction of saying that out loud. “Well, at least you don’t know about everyone else. And there are a lot of bodies,” he says. More than he thought possible but he’s been killing since he was seventeen, that was almost two decades now. Bodies racked up quickly when you killed every couple of months, more if he had time or an abundance of targets.

Tony looks unruffled by this but Steve suspected Tony had a body count that was easily as high as his or better. If he included Tony’s past in weapons he was one of the most prolific killers in this history of the world. Either way he clearly wasn’t intimidated by Steve’s body count.

“You have a military past, I’m sure you know how to hide a body. That’s why your shitty skills are so offensive. I have a buddy in the military and he doesn’t really condone serial killing but I feel like he’d be embarrassed with your lack of skill,” Tony says, waving a hand around dismissively.

“Every time you speak you make it more and more tempting to kill you,” Steve tells him. He wonders if he’d actually be able to make Tony disappear. It’d be more work and he’d actually have to cover his tracks but he was sure he could do it. He’d need one hell of an alibi now that Stark _told Pepper_ about him though. No doubt another power play on his part- now more than one person had evidence to his crimes so if he was gone Steve couldn’t conveniently slip away. That was actually quite smart and Steve resents him for that. In hindsight killing Tony and Pepper then would have been a smart decision but he had been more concerned with figuring out what the hell was wrong with Tony and then possibly strangling him than worrying too much about Pepper. She was an easy target, Tony was the real threat.

“Then try it, Rogers, I dare you,” Tony tells him, dark eyes bright with anticipation.

Steve narrows his eyes at him as he tries to figure out what he really wanted here. “Do you actually want a partner or do you want some kind of pawn instead?” he asks.

Tony, to Steve’s surprise considered this for a moment even if his eyes were still bright as he watched Steve, like he anticipated a fight. He should, Steve thinks, just maybe not the way he was expecting. Steve’s specialty was flying under the radar while Tony spent so much time on the radar it made him hard to target. He expected something bold and flashy like himself, Steve realizes, when he should expect something far more underhanded. Steve figures he’d bide his time, see what Tony was capable of before he tried anything. It was best to know how his prey worked, after all. From there he’d consider what to do with Pepper.

*

James sits at his desk with a cup of coffee pouring over the files one more time like something will jump out at him even though he knew the information in the folders backwards and forwards. “Dude, you aren’t going to find anything new,” Clint tells him. He’s hanging over the back of his own chair with a file in his hand, Coulson’s profile of both killers he was sure, looking at James.

“I know. And neither are you,” he says. They were both frustrated about it but what were they supposed to do realistically? The only way to catch these guys was if someone else died and they found a body. No one really wanted that.

Clint sighs, “yeah, I know. It’s fucking frustrating. We _know_ they’ve both killed more than what we’ve found but we have no evidence for it and profiles are only so useful. Honestly that narcissistic asshole that’s probably in his late thirties describes half the precinct,” Clint says, shaking his head. James found that to be true too, and he knew Natasha felt the same given her suspicious look at several men that Coulson delivered his profile to.

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Natasha tells them as she walks in looking pale. James wonders what just happened for Natasha to look like that. If he knew nothing else about her he knew she had a strong stomach so whatever happened must be bad. Clint raises an eyebrow at her and she sighs, “we just found another body. This one was left in an ally.”

James and Clint exchange a look because this was new, “which killer do you think it was?” he asks.

Natasha takes a deep breath and rubs her temple, “the evidence suggests both. Coulson says this isn’t going to stop any time soon either, and displaying the bodies is new to both of them almost entirely.” Yeah, minus the one they found they new the narcissist covered his tracks. The only reason the victim they found was left in a park was because she was a message. They guessed that his other victims didn’t carry the same kind of message Jenna did for some reason. Their other guy wasn’t big on displays in general so this was an entirely different MO.

“Was it… organized?” James asks, almost too afraid to know the answer.

“Too early to tell. But we need you both on the scene so lets go,” she tells him. Clint and James exchange another look and sigh before getting up to go. He was sure Clint also had the feeling that none of this was going to go well.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my GOSH I never take this long to update. Sorry guys!
> 
> That said I have reached some conclusions about this story that I wasn't anticipating, even if I've been lacking the muse to write it. So stay tuned for that I suppose lol.
> 
> Uh- warning for murder. It isn't very in depth but still, its good to know about it going in.

Steve glares at Tony, “why is it that everything has to be _your_ way?” he asks. “You choose the time, place, method, victim, and everything else and apparently I’m supposed to just agree to all this.”

“Who was the one who covered your ass when you didn’t?” Tony reminds him. “Besides, he killed two kids, he fits your victim pool too asshole. Stop being so ungrateful,” he mumbles, going back to watching the door of the apartment building they were currently outside of. Any cameras conveniently glitched when he and Steve went into the ally way and they’d do it again when they left.

“I’m getting real tired of your shit, Stark,” Steve mumbles at him, giving him a look that he probably thinks is subtle but Tony knew resentment well. He’s spent a lot of time with the same look on his face whenever he saw Howard.

“And I’m tired of your whining,” Tony tells him. For someone who supposedly didn’t care about prison he sure seemed intent on hiding his identity. If he truly didn’t care he’d just leave this whole thing behind and let Tony turn him in, which he would do in a heartbeat, and yet he stuck around. Maybe he was curious too, but Tony would bet that his blasé attitude towards prison wasn’t something that actually held up whether he knew it or not.

His words earn him another sharp glare but Tony is more focused on the person opening the door to the apartment building with a trash bag in his hand than Steve, at least until Steve moves. Tony would give him credit for being fast, shockingly fast actually, but Tony processed information way faster than normal people did so he had pulled what looked like a watch into a sleek, fingerless glove by the time Steve slammed him back into the ally wall. By the time Steve squeezes he has his hand wrapped around Steve’s wrist with his gloved hand and he twists. Steve swears and does his best to pull his hand back but the extra strength the glove lent Tony’s fingers made that a difficult task.

He does let Steve go though, mostly because his victim was about to make an escape back through the back door to his apartment building. Tony quickly gauges the distance between himself and his target, assesses the weight of the knife he pulled from his belt, and considers how hard he’d have to throw the weapon for it to properly lodge into the man’s knee, and exactly how many revolutions the knife would make while still maintaining momentum before it hit the target body part. With a rough but educated guess at the angle he’d need he throws the weapon, watching it fly hilt over blade until it landed exactly where he thought it’d land. He gives a triumphant smile and turns back to Steve, “don’t think I didn’t see that coming from three miles away. I’m not a fool and neither are you. Deal with this,” he tells him and with that he leaves, his latest victim trying to get back through the door that locked from the inside. This had all lost its luster to him and it was pathetic to watch his latest victim desperately try and turn a doorknob he knew wouldn’t turn.

*

Steve was shit at cleanup, Tony decides, and he could guarantee it was just to spite Tony too. Something told him this would happen so he had come back to make sure there wasn’t any actual evidence. Risky didn’t even _begin_ to cover what he was doing now but most of the evidence was that Steve was there, not him. There wasn’t much on the crime scene to link it back to him but there was more than he was comfortable with. Usually he killed in the comfort of his own home- which rarely had cops in it unlike shitty neighborhoods in seedy parts of town, but someone had to make sure Steve didn’t fuck them both out of some petty need to get back at Tony for being competent at killing.

Tony doesn’t do a bunch of clean up, mostly enough to not make it look obvious that someone was there after the fact, and he has to roll his eyes at the complete mockery that Steve made of posing the body. It was a clear message to Tony that he wasn’t impressed with his position as underling, not that Tony cared. Steve’s presence was purely an experiment on his end and he was quickly failing at it. He should have stuck to Pepper, she’s the dependable one, Steve was a whiny brat. He wonders if Steve realized that Tony wasn’t exactly unopposed of acting out Steve’s stupid MO of killing a killer. His purpose was to make things interesting for Tony and this was less interesting and more irritating.

He picks his way around the crime scene, carefully avoiding leaving more evidence as he removes small details from the crime, things most wouldn’t even notice. Forensics would though, even if they had to comb through things three times or more before they found what he did in seconds. Experience taught him plenty, plus his ability to find and memorize details faster than most was helpful. It doesn’t take him long to clean up most of Steve’s mess- he leaves the body mostly because it was too petty to even consider, and moves to leave when his phone starts buzzing.

With an annoyed sigh he pulls it out of his pocket and glances at the caller ID, “what?” he asks Pepper.

“Have you seen my gym shoes?” she asks. Tony looks down at his feet, currently in Pepper’s shoes, and promptly lies.

“Nope,” he tells her. It wasn’t that he felt guilty it was just that he didn’t want to hear her complain about him using the shoes. He needed something generic and mass marketed, which excluded every single pair of his shoes, so he stole Pepper’s gym shoes. Simple sneakers, mass marketed, next to impossible to trace.

‘Why are you lying?” she asks.

He rolls his eyes, “you can’t know I’m lying,” he says. Humans were terrible at detecting lies- they were literally right only half the time and thanks to everyone reacting differently to situations supposedly common tells weren’t as useful as people thought. He’s looked into it for purposes of evading his unlikely capture. Murder cases were nearly impossible to make with no bodies, but it didn’t mean a prosecutor wouldn’t try.

“You’re the only one who knows where my gym shoes are, Tony. Why did you take them?” she asks.

He frowns, “how am I the only one who knows you keep your gym shoes under your desk in your office? The cleaning people at the very least should know where they are,” he says.

“Why do _you_ know where they are? It’s hardly as if you pay attention to my gym habits,” she says.

No, he didn’t, but he did know she went to the gym so he went and searched for her shoes. “Yeah, but you talk about the gym so I knew you had gym shoes. It’s not like you’d wear Gucci pumps to run on a tread mill,” he points out. He actually wanted to see if she could do it, just for fun because it would be amusing to watch.

“Great, so you pay enough attention to steal my shoes. Can I have them back now?” she asks.

“Sure,” he tells her and Pepper lets out a loud snort.

“Predictable. You’re a genius but you can’t lie to save your life. Why did you steal my shoes?” she asks, sounding exasperated.

Tony thinks over the conversation and frowns, irritated that Pepper manipulated him into telling her he stole her shoes and she wasn’t even subtle about it either. “I uh, had some stuff to do,” he says evasively.

“Stuff,” Pepper repeats. “You better not mean the stuff I think you mean, Tony,” she tells him in a warning tone. He’s heard that tone enough to know it didn’t spell out anything particularly good.

He looks back in the direction of the crime scene he just left and shrugs even though Pepper couldn’t see it. “Nah, other stuff,” he says casually.

What gave him away he had no idea but it results in Pepper yelling at him so he decides to hang up and talk to her later when she wasn’t in a mood to scream.

*

James looks at the evidence, Natasha pouring over the same information across from him. “Phil says the scene was tampered with but it was subtle,” Clint says.

He could see that though it was difficult to. Whoever came back knew what they were doing to say the least. There was a lot of blood and not a single footprint. “What else did he say?” James asks, wanting Phil’s opinion on this.

Clint sighs, “mostly he’s got a lot of theories and no real evidence. He’s not sure they like each other though so there’s that.” It’s a stupid thing to hope for, one serial killer killing another but it would be convenient for them at least. Personally James was hoping the smarter one was killed off, whichever one that was. Smart people were difficult to catch.

“He’s not sure they like each other…” Natasha repeats slowly, thinking over the statement as she examines her notes.

“Yeah, Phil says this was all rushed and there was a knife wound in the guy’s leg. Neither victim that we found from either killer suggested this was a method used by them before. Phil thinks they were arguing and their target almost escaped, hence the knife to the knee,” he says.

James frowns, “why the knee? Wouldn’t it be easier to stab the guy in the neck?” he asks. Faster death too, which isn’t the goal for either killer, but if they were pressed for time, pissed at each other, and in public, well.

“Banner says the way the knife and sound looked suggested the knife was thrown,” Clint says.

Natasha looks up from her notes and squints a little, “that’s risky at best. What if he screamed?”

“Seedy part of town,” James says, “no one would have paid much attention to that.”

“And,” Clint adds, “there was still plenty of torture. Whatever the goal was here it wasn’t to kill him right away.”

Well alright then, at least that mystery was partially solved… well not really. This was all making more questions than answers and it irritated him. He leans back in his chair, “so what the hell is going on, guys?”

They all look around at each other, obviously not having the answers before Natasha finally sighs, “well I guess we’re about to find out.”

That, James thinks, can’t be good.

**Author's Note:**

> [My writing Tumblr](https://tenspencerriedplease.tumblr.com/)


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